Fiends, Ghosts, and Sprites / Including an Account of the Origin and Nature of Belief in the Supernatural

by John Netten Radcliffe

"He spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reel'd around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been,—
But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back,
And thrust themselves between him and the light."

The protracted devotion of the thoughts to the memory of those whom the grave has severed from us, or from whom we are separated by distance, and which is induced by grief, gives also to the mental image great vividness. Exquisitely beautiful and true is the sentence placed in the mouth of Constance, when blamed for the grief she entertained on being separated from Prince Arthur:—

"Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form:
Then have I reason to be fond of grief."

In direct proportion to the concentration of the mind in the contemplation of its own actions, is the brilliancy and distinctness of the ideas which pass athwart it; and in the state of abstraction or of reverie, when from intense meditation, or from mere inactivity, the sensations derived from surrounding objects are not attended to, the ideas are so defined that they differ but little from actual objects in the sensations they excite. So also in sleep, if, from any cause, physical or mental, we are roused into a state of semi-consciousness, as in dreaming, the phantasms of former events, stored up in the memory, and by certain sensations or trains of thought thrown to the surface, differ in no respect—light, colour, shade, or sound—from the sensations derived from the objects represented.

Should, therefore, the concentration of the mind upon any subject be such as to disturb the natural functions of the brain, the mental image is liable to excite sensations, and to be pourtrayed with a distinctness and "outness" which approximates to, or equals, that of a real object, and it is regarded as such.

In the majority of individuals the concentration and intensity of feeling necessary for the production of hallucinations is of rare occurrence, and it is found only under such conditions as profound grief caused by death under painful or peculiar circumstances; from terror, excited by causes bringing powerful superstitious feelings into play—under which circumstances the hallucinations induced are generally transitory—or by emotions inordinately protracted; hence it is that we find visions of the dead among the most common of the temporary hallucinations. In the studious, and men of powerful thought, the mind being habituated to absorption in its own ideas, it not unfrequently happens that hallucinations occur from a disordered state of the brain induced by continued mental labour. These hallucinations are generally very vivid, and may arise either voluntarily or involuntarily, and may become habitual without the health being seriously disturbed.

It will be seen, therefore, that the action of the mental powers alone is sufficient to give rise to sensations which are regarded as resulting from actual objects; and that from the simple vividness of the mental image, which is common to most persons, we may trace their effects, in a gradually ascending scale, in inducing mental conditions in which the brilliancy of the image is such that, for the time, it completely occupies the attention, and shuts out, as it were, the sensations derived from objects before the field of vision,—and in the formation of ideas so vivid and defined, that they take their position among surrounding, and excite the sensations proper to external, objects.

We have thus far spoken of the effects of the imagination on the healthy frame, but in certain disordered conditions of the nervous system, occurring either alone, or in connection with other and more general morbid alterations in the economy, hallucinations are more apt to occur than in health. The system in this state is more susceptible of the effects of emotion, and the images arising in the mind are more vivid than would happen from the same degree of excitement in health, and are readily converted into hallucinations. This is witnessed in certain forms of hysteria, febrile diseases, &c.; hence, in these disordered conditions of the system, the hallucinations are not to be attributed to the action of the mind, so much as to a morbid susceptibility to undergo those changes requisite to the production of hallucinations; and these are, consequently, induced by grades of emotion and by influences which would not have caused that in ordinary health.

On the other hand, the action of the mind in the development of hallucinations equally induces certain diseased states, either special or general. Even simple and temporary hallucination, in whatever manner caused, must be regarded as an indication that the changes going on in the nervous centres have passed the bounds of health; and according as the causes inducing hallucinations are more or less protracted, or the hallucinations are more or less persistent or frequent, so we may mark a greater or less deterioration in the mental powers, the nervous or the general system, or indications of more acute disease, to progress along with them, until the acme is reached in insanity, idiocy, or some more rapidly progressive and equally formidable disease.

To illustrate these remarks: Blake, the artist, who, after the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, enjoyed great fame as a portrait-painter, owed his celebrity, in great part, to the singular fact that he required but one or, at the most, two sittings, from those whose portraits he painted. He was accustomed to regard the person who sat to him attentively for about half an hour, sketching from time to time on the canvas, and he would then pass on to another subject. When he wished to continue the first portrait, on placing the canvas before him, he had the power of calling up so vivid a mental image of the personage, the outline of whose face was depicted upon it, that it assumed all the appearance of reality, and he perceived it in the position in which he required it to be. From this phantasm he painted, turning from the canvas and regarding it as he would have done had the representative of the phantom been there in person. By degrees he began to lose the distinction between the real and the imaginary objects, and at length a complete confusion of the mind occurred, rendering it necessary for him to be confined in an asylum. During his residence there, his insanity was marked by an exaggeration of that vivid power of imagination he had possessed previously; for he at will could summon before him the phantoms of any of the personages of history, and he held long and sensible conversations with Michael Angelo, Moses, Semiramis, Richard III, &c., all of whom appeared to him, when he desired, in the vivid hues and distinct outlines of reality.