The Spirit Land

by Samuel B. Emmons

FACULTY OF IMITATION.

The faculty of imitating signatures, of writing music, poetry, specimens of foreign tongues, &c., is no more strange than imitating the voice and gestures of those we never heard nor saw. Persons of scarcely any education or talents, while under biological influence, have been made to imitate the voice of Webster, Everett, Fillmore, and others, delivering off-hand speeches of most impassioned diction and eloquence; while, in their normal state, they could scarcely frame a paragraph in the king's English, much more deliver a formal address, embellished with a profusion of metaphors, tropes, and figures, accompanied with the finished attitudes and movements of a Choate, a Sumner, or a Banks! These mesmeric imitations refer also to mechanical and artistic power, and every talent that characterizes us as intelligent beings. Some assert that mediums are in a perfectly normal state during the exhibitions of the "spirit" phenomena; and yet, to the practical mesmerizer, nothing is plainer than that they are most absolutely mesmeric persons.

The power of imitation among mediums is various, but distinct. Some draw maps, purporting to come from a deceased schoolmate. Others draw likenesses; others speak in voices imitating the dead—but they can imitate the living just as well; others hear sounds—the voice of a wife, or child, or friend. Walter Scott relates the case of an English gentleman who was ill, and was told by his physician that he had lived in London too long, and lived too fast; and advised him to retire to the country and ruralize. One of his troubles was, that a set of green dressed dancers would enter his drawing room, go through their evolutions, and retire. He knew it was an illusion, but could not resist the annoyance, or the impressions made on him. He returned to his country seat, and, in a few weeks, got rid of his visitors. He concluded to remain out of town, and sent to London for the furniture of his old parlor, to be placed in his country house; but when it came, and was arranged in the room, the corps de ballet, dressed in green, all rushed into the room, exclaiming, "Here we are all again!" He had associated in his mind the furniture and the dancing apparitions, and when it returned, they came with it, and, as he thought, spoke with voices. We recollect of reading in a medical paper, published in Boston, an account of a man who believed his house to be haunted by the devil, in consequence of which he resolved to vacate it and remove into the country. His goods were packed into a wagon, and he was just upon the point of starting with his load, when to his surprise he heard a voice, seemingly among the goods, crying out, "We are all going together." "If that is the case," said the man, "I will unload again; for if I am to have the devil's company, it may as well be in one place as another."

The excessive use of wine will induce a state of the brain, in which the person thinks he hears voices and sees spirits; but on close examination it will be found that it is the work of the abnormal powers, developed in the brain by stimulating agents or intense thinking. It will be recollected that Swedenborg, after eating a late, heavy supper, heard a voice crying out to him in terrible accents, "Eat not so much." (See chap. 5.) Such phenomena may unravel the voice Judge Edwards heard. His long-continued meditation on death, with night, solitude, loneliness, and grief, had so impressed him that he thought he heard a sound in exact imitation of the voice of his wife. In the case related by Scott, hearing was not only affected, but the organ of color was involved in the hallucination, and the green figures were as plain before him as real persons. This is always one of the phenomena of ghost-seeing that the seer associates with the spectre, namely, form and color, voice and action.

The cases of imitation referred to, and others of the same class, are the results of the imitative mechanic power of the individual, brought out by the abnormal magnetic state existing at the time. For instance, if the individual has time and tune—the faculty of music within lying undeveloped—it may be brought out, and made to act, by the effects of magnetism. Last winter we listened to a lecture delivered in Newark, New Jersey, by the Rev. Mr. Harris, from New York city. He stated that there was a lady in Providence, who, by the agency of spirits, produced musical compositions equal to the productions of the best masters, as Haydn, Beethoven, and others, and that a volume of these pieces were soon to be issued from the press. And although the said work has not been heard of as yet, still we doubt not that a person in a magnetic state might write very good music, even if totally ignorant of its rules, as this young lady was said to be.

Phrenologists often tell persons that they would make excellent tailors, dressmakers, poets, painters, musicians, &c.—persons who never attempted to operate in these callings. "All they need," it is said, "is an opportunity for the development of their powers." Now, magnetism tends to develop or rouse these dormant faculties into action. It also gives a far-reaching, a far-seeing grasp and perception of things, as in the case of Miss Martineau, who, be it remembered, was too intelligent to attribute such effects to the agency of spirits.

A marked case of the increase of the imitative power of persons in the magnetic condition, is found in the case of Frederica Hauffe. In one of her magnetic moods she informed Dr. Kerner that she would make a diagram of the spheres. "The sun sphere," as she called it, is very complex; but "she spun out the complicated web with unerring precision," and a pair of compasses given her to facilitate her labor only embarrassed her. It is made up of circles within circles, and sections and points, amounting to thousands, related and connected; and yet the "whole was executed," says Dr. K., "in an incredible short space of time." An engraving was made of this sphere, and a year after she was shown the engraving, and said it was not correct; a point on one of the lines was wanting. On referring to the original, they found she was right. This diagram contained many curious things, and in some parts related to the highest departments of mathematics. This faculty she only possessed in the magnetic state, being wholly incompetent to the task when not clairvoyant. No living artist can execute that diagram with a pen, with a fac-simile before him, with the rapidity with which that ignorant, unlettered child of nature did it. "I have, in many cases," says Dr. Richmond, "witnessed this imitative power of mediums with the pen, dashing off figures and images with a rashness and rapidity almost inconceivable." As far as we can see, there is no more proof of the agency of spirits in one case than in the other; and we are sure no such claim was ever set up in the case of Mrs. Hauffe, though living in a less enlightened region, perhaps, than these United States. We might multiply cases of this kind, but space will not permit.

UNSEEN LETTERS AND SIGNATURES.

The operator in biology or magnetism often lays hold of the inquiring spectator, and uses him or her to imitate unseen letters, signatures, and sentences, in foreign languages. And no doubt but what Professor Bush has been made unconsciously instrumental in executing a few specimens of languages, his eyes wide open, it may be, all the while. It can be no more strange than that the son of Dr. Phelps should have been made unconsciously instrumental in tying himself to the limb of a tree in his father's yard, supposing it to have been done by spirits. (See the version of the affair by A. J. Davis.)

A biological mesmerist assures us that he finds no difficulty in raising beds, chairs, and tables; and in the case of Mr. Kellogg it is shown that such things are easily done without any aid from spirits. In the case of Dr. Taylor, the writing medium, it is shown, by the testimony of the spirits themselves, if their word is to be relied on, that the phenomena in his case were not done by spirits, but were the results of vital electricity. Such things are getting to be so common that we may expect soon to see the time when little ragged boys even (like those in Egypt, who went through the streets offering to show the spirit of any deceased friend for a penny or a piece of cake) will offer to lift tables, or imitate handwritings, at a penny a sight. We know of several "mediums," now engaged in these things, who confess they do not understand by what power it is they raise tables, or write sentences, &c., yet they do not believe it to be done by the agency of disembodied spirits. In many schools, the children have been forbidden by their teachers to indulge in these foolish practices. This power may be electricity, in some of its forms, or some other agent that has some relation or affinity to it, as in the cases related by Mr. Rogers.