Sir David Brewster relates an interesting example of illusion arising from this source. "A gentleman devoid of all superstitious feelings, and living in a house free from any gloomy associations, heard, night after night, in his bedroom, a singular noise, unlike any ordinary sound to which he was accustomed. He had slept in the same room for years without hearing it, and he attributed it at first to some change of circumstances in the roof or in the walls of the room; but after the strictest examination no cause could be found for it. It occurred only once in the night; it was heard almost every night with few interruptions. It was over in an instant, and it never took place till after the gentleman had gone to bed. It was always distinctly heard by his companion, to whose time of going to bed it had no relation. It depended on the gentleman alone, and it followed him into another apartment with another bed, on the opposite side of the house. Accustomed to such investigations, he made the most diligent but fruitless search into its cause. The consideration that the sound had a special reference to him alone, operated upon his imagination, and he did not scruple to acknowledge that the recurrence of the mysterious sound induced a superstitious feeling at the moment. Many months afterwards it was found that the sound arose from the partial opening of the door of a wardrobe which was within a few feet of the gentleman's head, and which had been taken into the other apartment. This wardrobe was almost always opened before he retired to bed, and the door being a little too tight, it gradually forced itself open with a sort of dull sound, resembling the note of a drum. As the door had only started half an inch out of its place, its change of position never attracted attention. The sound, indeed, seemed to come in a different direction, and from a greater distance.
"When sounds so mysterious in their origin are heard by persons predisposed to a belief in the marvellous, their influence over the mind must be very powerful. An inquiry into their origin, if made at all, will be made more in the hope of confirming than of removing the original impression, and the unfortunate victim of his own fears will also be the willing dupe of his own judgment."[54]
Not unfrequently the difficulty of distinguishing the direction of sound has been made the basis of imposition upon the credulous; and when it is considered how readily the judgment is led into error in this respect, even when aware of the deception practised, as in ventriloquism, the easy facility with which it is imposed upon when superstitious feelings are excited, and the wide-spread delusions which have thus arisen, cannot be wondered at.
The Cock-lane ghost is a familiar example of a deception of this nature: but this, and every other delusion of a similar character, sink into insignificance before a delusion of our own day and times—Spirit-rapping.
The idea of a communication of the spiritual world with man by the intervention of raps, is not new. A writer in a recent number of "Notes and Queries,"[55] gives the following example of an early instance of this kind in England.
"Rushton Hall, near Kettering, in Northamptonshire, was long the residence of the ancient and distinguished family of Treshams. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the mansion was occupied by Sir Thomas Tresham, who was a pedant and a fanatic; but who was an important character in his time by reason of his great wealth and powerful connections. There is a lodge at Rushton, situate about half-a-mile from the old hall, now in ruins, but covered all over within and without with emblems of the Trinity. This lodge is known to have been built by Sir Thomas Tresham; but his precise motive for selecting this mode of illustrating his favourite doctrine was unknown until it appeared from a letter written by himself about the year 1584, and discovered in a bundle of books and papers inclosed since 1605, in a wall of the old mansion, and brought to light about twenty years ago. The following relation of a "rapping" or "knocking" is extracted from this letter:—
"If it be demanded why I labour so much in the Trinity and Passion of Christ to depaint in this chamber, this is the principal instance thereof; that at my last being hither committed"—(referring to his commitments for recusancy, which had been frequent)—"and I usually having my servants here allowed me, to read nightly an hour to me after supper, it fortuned that Fulcis, my then servant, reading in the "Christian Resolution," in the treatise of "Proof that there is a God, &c.," there was upon a wainscot table at that instant three loud knocks (as if it had been with an iron hammer) given; to the great amazing of me and my two servants, Fulcis and Nilkton."
Another example of early "spirit-rapping" is the celebrated ghost of "Old Jeffreys," at the Epworth Parsonage, during the childhood of the Revds. John and Charles Wesley.
The conception of a familiar correspondence between the spirit-world and man by means of knocks and raps is, however, an idea of modern times, and for which we are indebted to America, although it would seem that in 1835 we were on the eve of making this unenviable discovery in our own country, for the invisible cause of certain noisy disturbances in a house occupied by a Captain Molesworth at Trinity, near Edinburgh, in that year, would, it is asserted, respond to a question by knocks, if it could be answered numerically; as, for example, "How many people are there in the room?" when it would answer by as many knocks. This so-called spirit seemed at times to be drumming a certain tune. The knocks in this case had some very intimate connection with a sick girl, a daughter of Captain Molesworth; for they accompanied her, and wherever she was there they prevailed most.