DIVINATION.
"There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination."—Deut. xviii. 9.
The usual activity of our mind is limited to the perception of the world around us, and its life, as far as the power of our senses reaches; it must, therefore, necessarily be confined within the limits of space and time. There are, however, specially favored men among us who profess an additional power, or even ordinary men may be thus endowed under peculiar circumstances, as when they are under the influence of nervous affections, trances, or even merely in an unusual state of excitement. Then they are no longer subject to the usual laws of distance in space, or remoteness in time; they perceive as immediately present what lies beyond the reach of others, and the magic power by which this is accomplished is called Divination. This vision is never quite clear, nor always complete or correct, for even such exceptionable powers are in all cases more or less subject to the imperfections of our nature; habitual notions, an ill-executed imagination, and often a disordered state of the system, all interfere with its perfect success. These imperfections, moreover, not only affect the value of such magic perceptions, but obscure the genuine features by a number of false statements and of erroneous impressions, which quite legitimately excite a strong prejudice against the whole subject. Hence, especially, the rigor of the Church against divination in every form; it has ever ascribed the errors mixed up with the true parts of such revelations to the direct influence of the Evil One. The difficulty, however, arises that such magic powers have nothing at all to do with the question of morality; the saint and the criminal may possess them alike, since they are elements of our common nature, hidden in the vast majority of cases, and coming into view and into life only in rare exceptional instances.
Divination, as freed from the ordinary limits of our perceptions, appears either as clairvoyance, when things are seen which are beyond the range of natural vision, or as prophecy, when the boundary lines of time are overstepped. The latter appears again in its weakest form as a mere anticipation of things to come, or rises to perfection in the actual foretelling of future events. It is sad enough to learn from the experience of all nations that the occurrences thus foreseen are almost invariably great misfortunes, yet our surprise will cease if we remember that the tragic in life exercises by far the greatest influence on our mind, and excites it far beyond all other events. Nor must we overlook the marvelous unanimity with which such magic powers are admitted to exist in Man by all nations on earth. The explanation, also, is invariably the same, namely, that Man possessed originally the command over space and time as well as God himself, but that when sin came into the world and affected his earth-born body, this power was lost, and preserved only to appear in exceptional and invariably most painful cases. So thought the ancients even long before revelation had spoken. They believed that Man had had a previous god-like existence before appearing upon earth, where he was condemned to expiate the sins of his former life, while his immortal and divine soul was chained to a perishing earthy body. Plato, Plutarch, and Pythagoras, Cicero (in his book De Divinatione), and even Porphyrius, all admit without hesitation the power of divination, and speak of its special vigor in the moments preceding death. Melanchthon ascribed warning dreams to the prophetic power of the human soul. Brierre de Boismont also is forced to admit that not all cases of clairvoyance and prophesying are the results of hallucination by diseased persons; he speaks, on the contrary, and in spite of his bitter skepticism, of instances in which the increased powers of perception are the effect of "supernatural intuition."
One of the most prolific sources of error in Divination has ever been the variety of means employed for the purpose of causing the preparatory state of trance. It is well known in our day that the mind may be most strangely affected by innumerable agencies which are apparently purely mechanical, and often utterly absurd. Such are an intent gazing at highly-polished surfaces of metal, or into the bright inside of a gold cup, at the shining sides of a crystal, or the varying hues of a glass globe; now vessels filled with pure water, and now ink poured into the hand of a child, answer the same purpose. Fortune-telling from the lines of the hand or the chance combinations of playing-cards are, in this aspect, on a par with the prophecies of astrologers drawn from the constellations in the heavens. It need hardly be added that this almost infinite variety of more or less absurd measures has nothing at all to do with the awaking of magic power, and continues in use only from the prestige which some of the means, like the cup of Joseph and the mirror of Varro, derive from their antiquity. Their sole purpose is uniformly to withdraw the seer's attention from all outward objects, and to make him, by steadily gazing at one and the same object, concentrate his thoughts and feelings exclusively upon his own self. Experience has taught that such efforts, long continued, result finally in utter loss of feeling, in unconsciousness, and frequently even in catalepsy. It is generally only under such peculiarly painful circumstances that the unusual powers of our being can become visible and begin to operate. While these results may be obtained, as recent experiments have proved, even by mere continued squinting, barbarous nations employ the most violent means for the same purpose—the whirling of dervishes, the drumming and dancing of northern shamans, the deafening music of the Moors, are all means of the same kind to excite the rude and fierce nature of savages to a state of excessive excitement. In all cases, however, we must notice the comparative sterility of such divination, and the penalty which has to be paid for most meagre results by injuries inflicted upon the body, and by troubles caused in the mind, which, if they do not become fatal to life, are invariably so to happiness and peace. That the sad privilege may have to be paid for with life itself, we learn already from Plutarch's account of a priestess who became so furious while prophesying, that not only the strangers but the priests themselves fled in dismay, while she herself expired a few hours later (II. p. 438).
The state in which all forms of divination are most apt to show themselves is by theologians called ecstasis, when it is caused by means specially employed for the purpose and appears as a literally "being beside one's self"; by its side they speak of raptus, when the abnormal state suddenly begins during an act of ordinary life, such as walking, working, or even praying. The distinction is of no value as to the nature of the magic powers themselves, which are in all cases the same; it refers exclusively to the outer form.
One of the simplest methods is the Deasil-walking of the Scotch Highlanders: the seer walks rapidly three times, with the sun, around the person whose future is to be foretold, and thus produces a trance, in which his magic powers become available. Walter Scott's "Chronicles of the Canongate" gives a full account of this ceremony. Robin Oig's aunt performs the ceremony, and then warns him in great terror, that she has seen a bloody dagger in his hand, stained with English blood, and beseeches him to stay at home. He disregards the omen, kills the same night an Englishman, a cattle-dealer, and pays for the crime with his life.
In the East, on the contrary, the usual form is to employ a young boy, taken at haphazard from the street, and to force him to gaze intently at Indian ink poured into the hollow of the hand, at molten lead, wax poured into cold water, the paten of a priest or a shining sword, with which several men have been killed. General readers will recall the famous boy of Cairo, who saw thus, in the dark, glittering surface of ink, the great Nelson—curiously enough as in a mirror, for he reported the image to be without the left arm and to wear the left sleeve across the breast, while the great admiral had lost his right arm and wore the right sleeve suspended. Burke, in his amusing "Anecdotes of the Aristocracy," etc. (I. p. 124), relates how the "magician" Magraubin in Alexandria appeared with a ten-year-old Coptic boy before the officers of H. M's. ship Vanguard. After burning much incense and uttering many unintelligible formulas he rolled a paper in the shape of a cornucopia, filled it with ink, and bade the boy tell them what he saw. As usual, he saw first a broom sweeping, and was thoroughly frightened. When a young midshipman asked him to inquire what would be his fate, he described instantly a sailor with gold on the shoulders, fighting against Indians till he fell dead; then came friends and buried him under a tree on a hill. The midshipman, Croker, returned home, abandoned the sea, and became a landowner in one of the midland counties of England, where he often laughed at the absurd prediction. Long years afterwards, however, when there was a sudden want of seamen, he was recalled into service and sent on a long cruise. He rose to become a captain, and while in command of a frigate fell, upon the island of Tongataboo, in a skirmish with the natives, whereupon he was interred there under a lofty palm-tree which stood on a commanding eminence. The same author repeats (I. p. 357) the well-known story of Lady Eleanor Campbell, which is in substance as follows:
Poor Lady Primrose, a daughter of the second Earl of Loudoun, had for years endured the saddest lot that can befall a noble woman: she had been bound by marriage to a husband whose dissolute habits and untamable passions inspired her with fear, while his short love for her had long since turned into bitter hatred. At last he formed the resolution to rid himself forever of his wife, whose very piety and gentleness were a standing reproof to his villainy. By a rare piece of good luck she was awake when he came from his deep potations, a bare sword in his hand, and ready to kill her; she saw him in the mirror before which she happened to be sitting, and escaped by jumping from a window and hastening to her husband's own mother. After this attempt at her life he disappeared, no one knew whither, but the poor lady, forsaken and yet not a widow, could not prevent her thoughts from dwelling, by day and by night, year after year, upon the image of her unfortunate husband and his probable fate in foreign lands. It was, therefore, not without a pardonable interest that she heard, one winter, people talk of a foreigner who had suddenly appeared in Canongate and created a great sensation throughout Edinburgh by his success in showing to inquiring visitors what their absent friends were doing. Her intense anxiety about her husband and her natural desire to ascertain whether she was still a wife or already a widow, combined to tempt her to call on the magician; she went, therefore, with a friend, both disguised in the tartans and plaids of their maids. Before they reached the obscure alley to which they had been directed, they lost their way, and were standing helpless, exposed to the cold, stormy weather, when suddenly a deep voice said to them: "You are mistaken, ladies, this is not your way!" "How so?" asked Lady Primrose, addressing a tall, gentlemanly looking man, with a stern face of deep olive color, in which a pair of black eyes shone like stars, and dressed in an elegant but foreign-looking costume. The answer came promptly: "You are mistaken in your way, because it lies yonder, and in your disguise, because it does not conceal you from him who can lift the veil of the Future!" Then followed a short conversation in which the stranger made himself known as the magician whom they were about to visit, and, by some words whispered into the lady's ear, as a man who not only recognized her as Lady Primrose, but who also was perfectly well acquainted with all the intimate details of her history. Amazed and not a little frightened, the two ladies accepted his courteous invitation to follow him, entered the house, and were shown into a simply furnished room, where the stranger begged them to wait for him, till all was ready for the ceremony by which alone he could satisfy their curiosity. After a short pause he reappeared in the traditional costume of a magician, a long tunic of black velvet which left his breast, arms, and hands free, and requested Lady Primrose to follow him into the adjoining room. After some little hesitation she left her companion and entered the room, which was perfectly plain, offering nothing to attract the eye save the dark curtains before the windows, an old-fashioned arm-chair, and a kind of altar of black marble, over which a large and beautiful mirror was suspended. Before the latter stood a small oven, in which some unknown substance burnt with a blue light, which alone feebly lighted up the room. The visitor was requested to sit down, to invoke help from above, and to abstain from uttering a sound, if she valued her life and that of the magician. After some simple but apparently most important ceremonies, the magician threw a pinch of red powder upon the flame, which instantly changed into bright crimson, while a few plaintive sounds were heard and red clouds seemed to rise before the mirror, broken at short intervals by vivid flashes of lightning. As the mist dispersed the glass exhibited to the lady's astonished eye the interior of a church, first in vague outlines undulating as passing clouds seemed to set them in motion, but soon distinctly and clear in the minutest details. Then a priest appeared with his acolytes at the altar, and a wedding party was seen standing before him, among whom Lady Primrose soon recognized her faithless husband. Before she could recover from her painful surprise she saw a stranger hastily entering the church, wrapped in his cloak; at the moment when the priest, who had been performing the usual ceremony, was about to join the hands of the couple before him, the unknown dropped his cloak and rushed forward. Lady Primrose saw it was her own brother, who drew his sword and attacked her husband; suddenly a thrust was made by the latter which threatened to be fatal, and the poor lady cried out: "Great God, they will kill my brother!" She had no sooner uttered these words than the whole scene in the mirror became dim and blurred, the clouds rose again and formed dense masses, and soon the glass resumed its ordinary brightness and the flame its faint blue color. The magician, apparently much excited, informed the lady that all was over, and that they had escaped a most fearful danger, incurred by her imprudence in speaking. He would accept no reward, stating that he had merely wished to oblige her, but would not have dared do so much, if he had foreseen the peril to which they had both been exposed. Lady Primrose, accompanied by her friend, reached home in a state of extreme excitement, but immediately wrote down the hour and the day of her strange adventure, with a full account of all she had seen in the magic mirror. The paper thus drawn up she sealed in the presence of her companion and hid it in a secret drawer. Not long afterwards her brother returned from the Continent, but for some time refused to speak at all of her husband; it was only after being long and urgently pressed by the poor lady, that he consented to tell her, how he had heard of Lord Primrose's intention to marry a very wealthy lady in Amsterdam, how by mere chance he had entered the church where the marriage ceremony was to be performed, and how he had come out just in time to prevent his brother-in-law from committing bigamy. They had fought for a few minutes without doing each other any injury, and after being separated, he had remained, while Lord Primrose had disappeared, no one knew whither. Upon comparing dates and circumstances, it appeared that the mirror had presented the scene faithfully in all its details; but the ceremony had taken place in the morning, the visit to the magician at night, so that the latter had, after all, only revealed an event already completed. There remains, however, the difficulty of accounting for the means by which in those days—about 1700—an event in Amsterdam could possibly have been known in Edinburgh, the night of the same day on which it occurred.
In France, under Louis XIV., a glass of water was most frequently used as a mirror in which to read the future. The Duke of St. Simon reports that the Duke of Orleans was thus informed that he would one day become Regent of France. The Abbé Choisy mentions a remarkable occurrence which took place at the house of the Countess of Soissons, a niece of the great Cardinal Mazarin. Her husband was lying sick in the province of Champagne, and she was anxious to know whether she ought to undertake the long and perilous journey to him or not; in this dilemma a friend offered to send for a diviner, who should tell her the issue of her husband's illness. He brought her a little girl, five years old, who, in the presence of a number of distinguished persons of both sexes, began, under the nobleman's direction, to tell what she saw in a glass of water. When she began by saying that the water looked as if it were troubled, the poor lady was so frightened that her friend suggested he would ask the spirit to show the child not her husband himself, but a white horse, if the Count was dead, and a tiger if he was alive. Then he asked the girl what she saw now? "Ah!" she cried out at once, "what a pretty white horse!" The company, however, refused to be content with one trial; five times in succession the test was altered, and in such a manner that the little child could not possibly be aware of the choice, but in each case the answer was unfavorable to the absent Count. It appeared, afterwards, that he had really died a day or two before the consultation. One of the most striking cases of such exceptional endowment was a Frenchman, Cahagnet, who in his work, Lumière des Morts (Paris, 1851), claimed to see remote objects and persons. He used to make a mental effort, upon which his eyes became fixed and he saw objects at a great distance, reading the title and discerning the precise shape of books in public libraries, or watching absent friends engaged in unusual occupations! This state of clairvoyance, however, never lasted more than sixty seconds, nor could he ever see the same object twice—limitations of his endowment which secured for him greater credit than he would have otherwise possessed. Occasionally he would assist the effort he had to make by fixedly gazing at some shining object, such as a small flaw in a mirror or a glass. Another restraint under which he labored, and which yet increased the faith of others, consisted in this, that such sights as presented themselves spontaneously to him proved invariably to be true, while the visions which he purposely evoked were not unfrequently unfounded in fact.