We have already made the acquaintance of some few theories which have arisen historically. Formerly, and even at the present day in fact, certain objects and qualities of objects were made accountable for the occurrence of striking hallucinations. The great cycle of legends that adhere to the magic mirror, has thus arisen. Often a pentahedronal quartz-crystal, often the fusion of the seven ancient metals into polished surfaces was supposed to possess especial virtue. Gregory, of Edinburgh, asserted that the phenomena were most easily produced by looking into a double-convex plate of zinc into the centre of which a small polished copper disk had been set. We now know that in the importance attached to these and similar directions the salient point was missed and an incidental factor pushed into the foreground. But in any event it is worthy of remark, that through belief in notions of this kind the seer gained a greater confidence in the success of his experiments. Even incorrect theories prove to be useful. When any one finally came into the possession of a famous magic stone, his firm belief in its powers induced a disposition to visions that perhaps never before existed in his organism to the same degree.
A second hypothesis regards the phenomena as manifestations of the Devil or the work of spirits. Dr. Dee gives a very minute description of his regular spirit visitors. He tells of an old woman in a red petticoat, and of a pretty little girl with her hair rolled up in front and hanging down very long behind. This constant personification is very significant, since it indicates the approach of recognised forms of mental alienation; however, the "Daimon" of Socrates proves that it does not in every case necessarily lead to this. We are come, here, into a border-land, from which some roads lead into the dark regions of insanity and others up to the luminous heights of inspired genius: but in every case we are concerned with a region in our own mind, and no natural propensity to externalisation must be allowed to deceive us with regard to it. The intrusion of foreign "spirits" into our psycho-physical organism, the assumption that incorporeal beings influence our nervous system so as to produce external effects, violently contradicts all human experience. If the spiritist doctrine could be mathematically proved it would be the most interesting solution imaginable of all these problems; and I must confess, the establishment of the existence of intelligent incorporeal beings would in my opinion eclipse all other events of our time. But the probability of this is at present very small.
A third theory, of modern origin, seeks the explanation of the question in a species of magic power inherent in man, as yet unfathomed, which is manifested especially in ecstatic conditions. The vehicles of the magic gaze are shining mirrors or reflecting surfaces, which forming a means of attraction for individuals of the proper constitution induce that peculiar state of alienation from every other subject, that concentration in the innermost self, which often rises to insensibility and unconsciousness, or even to cataleptic torpidity, wherein the consciousness of All-existence is liberated. Future events and distant occurrences are seen in pictures which appear to be reflected in the mirror or the fluid employed, but which in reality exist in the person gazing and are represented by projection outwards. Thus Perty.
Other philosophers speak of the "transcendental" capacities and powers of the human soul, or of the liberation of a metaphysical essentiality within us.
But these theories and suppositions are plainly the outcome of a premature simplification of our difficult problem. People are always too ready to thrust forward a new "power" or "force" to unify with dispatch and celerity uncomfortable phenomena of the present sort, and overlook the fact that every single phenomenon demands an exact investigation and explanation. Nothing is accomplished by calling phenomena "magical" or "transcendental." The work demanded is, to ascertain the connection and relation of the phenomena in question with the province of soul-life as a whole. To put an x in the place of a y contributes nothing to the solution of a problem. We cannot be too closely upon our guard against comprehensive syntheses of this character; for their splendid appearance dazzles woefully the eye of research.
Much nearer the truth is the position that hypnosis merely is concerned here. A well-known author, Louis Maury, who wrote in the middle part of this century, says:
"Among the principal methods of divination a great number aim at producing a sort of vertigo by acting upon the eyes and consequently upon the brain, in a manner something like that in which shining bodies act in hypnotism."
Mrs. De Morgan speaks in a similar strain:
"Crystal-vision is a well attested fact, having its laws and conditions like other phenomena in this world of known and hidden causes, and a little careful observation may clear away some of that obscurity which has kept it as the property of witches and sorcerers. The Crystal … seems to produce on the eye of the seer an effect exactly like what would ensue under the fingers of a powerful mesmeriser. The person who looks at it often becomes sleepy. Sometimes the eyes close. At other times tears flow."
Mrs. De Morgan's very description renders it doubtful whether we have to deal here with true, developed hypnotism. Other accounts are also calculated to shake this assumption. Cahagnet, for example, required only a moment of mental concentration for his eyes to become fixed; he lost all sight of the objects he had a moment before gazed upon, and those which he wished to call up appeared between him and the former. All spontaneous visions were fulfilled. When voluntarily evoked, but seven out of ten were true. When he wanted to produce the visions he fixed his eyes upon the first fit object, and he often saw hundreds and thousands of persons running hither and thither in one little shining point. Or he beheld a great city distinctly drawn in a mirror but one inch in diameter. This is not very easily reconciled with our conceptions of the character of hypnotism. Nor less so—to close our list of examples—the observations of an experimenter mentioned by Mrs. De Morgan, that the perceptions of crystal-vision are not interfered with by those of normal vision, but that the percipient could discontinue her observation at will, and returning would find the scene as she left it.