The Evolutionist.—Scientists have different ways of studying man. The evolutionist first develops the form. He says that life began in protoplasm in the unrecorded ages of the past, and step by step, through mollusk, fish, saurian and mammal, has arisen by the “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest,” until the mammal by strangely fortuitous chances has become a human being. As the human body is a modified animal form, so the intellect is a modified and developed instinct, the highest and most spiritual conscientiousness being only the result of accumulated experiences of what is for the best. The highest of animals is man, with no barrier between him and them, and subject to the same fate. There is no indication of a guiding intelligence, and if he possess an immortal spirit, so does the mollusk and the fleck of protoplasm.
The Chemist.—The chemist has his method, that of analysis. He takes the vital tissues and resolves them into their elementary parts. He tells us that there is so much hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen in the muscles; so much lime and phosphorus in the bones; so much phosphorus in the nerves, and iron in the blood. He separates these elements in retortor crucible, and weighs them with nicety so that he knows to a thousandth of a grain their proportions. He has made the ultimate analysis, and these are all he can discover. Life is the result of their union; mind the burning of phosphorus in the brain, and as for spirit, it is quite unnecessary to explain the phenomena. The chemist has finished his work, and placed in the museum the results of his analysis. That body perhaps weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. In a large glass jar is the water it contained—clear, crystal water, such as flashes in the sunlight of a rainbow-arching shower, or a dewdrop sparkling on the petals of a lily. There are about eight or ten gallons of it, for the body is three-fourths water. There is a small jar of white powder representing the lime; another, still smaller, the silex; another the phosphorus. There are homeopathic vials containing a trace of sulphur, of iron, magnesia, the potash, the soda, the salts and so on until the vials, great and small, contain more or less of almost every element. Here we have what was once a human being. We have every thing that went to make him, except one, which lacking, these elements are lifeless, and of no more value than water from the brook and earth from its banks: the vital, or psychic principle. Place the contents of all the lesser jars in the greater water jar, shake, dissolve, and manipulate, dead and inert they remain, and will remain so long as thus treated. The chemist in his analysis has made no account of the subtile principle which made these elementary atoms an expression of its purpose. The living form has its origin in the remote past, and its atoms were arranged and brought into union by a vital process which thus began; which must begin in this manner and traverse the same path. Phosphorus may beessential to give activity to the brain, and a given amount of thought may correspond to a fixed amount of phosphorus burned in nerve tissue. What of that? We know that in one of these vials is all the phosphorus that existed in one human being; we may burn it all, and it will give flame, not intelligence. If intelligence comes from its burning, the process must take place in nerve cells organized for the purpose, and that structure must have been planned by superior thought.
To call the ingredients of these bottles a human being would be like calling a pile of brick, mortar and lumber a house, except the comparison fails in the house being built by outside forces, while the living being must be organized from within. No mixing of the contents of these bottles and jars can evolve life, or even the smallest speck of protoplasm.
The Anatomist.—The third scheme is that of the anatomist, who with keen-edged scalpel bends over the body after life has gone out of it, and traces the course of arteries and veins, the form and location of nerves, the attachment of muscular fibers, and in connection with the physiologist defines the functions of each separate organ. An exquisitely fashioned machine it is, wonderfully and fearfully made, growing up from an invisible germ. After anatomist and physiologist have finished, and on their dissecting table only a mass of rubbish remains, they triumphantly point to it and exclaim: “See! We have settled the question of spirit! There can be nothing beyond this organism. We have determined how every cell and fiber of it are put together, and the functions they perform. No where is there an indication of any thing superior or transcending thismaterial form. Here is where the food is digested; here it is assimilated; here this secretion is made; here excretion of poisonous matter takes place; here in the brain, in these gray cells, thought arises. Ah! it is a wonderful complex machine.”
Indeed it is, and what has become of the power which moved it? You have a strange machine, unlike all others, for it is, according to your ideas, an engine to make steam, instead of to be moved by it; a mill to make a waterfall, instead of to be run by falling water. What is the difference between a dead man and a living one? Incomprehensibly great, and yet the dead man to the chemist, the anatomist, the biologist, is identically the same as the living. That unknown element, life, escapes the crucible, the retort, the scalpel, the microscope, and the conclusions of those who take it not into consideration are the vague conjecturing of children, who have gained but a half knowledge of the subjects that excite their attention.
Yet science proudly claims the knowledge of all things possible to know. It has searched into the foundations of the earth and ascended the starry dome of infinitude; it grasps the inconceivably small and the inconceivably great; it delves in the hard stratum of facts, and sports in the most sublime theories. It gives the laws of the dancing motes, and those which guide the movements of stellar worlds; the sullen forces of the elements and the subtile agencies which sustain living beings.
What is Beyond the Strife for Existence?—What, O Science, is there beyond the grave which shuts down with adamantine wall between this life and the future?
The answer comes: Beyond? There is nothing.Do not dream, but know the reality. What becomes of its music after the instrument is destroyed? Where is the hum of the bee after the insect has passed on its busy wings? Where is the light in the lamp after the oil is burned? Where is the heat of the grate after the coal has burned? Given the conditions and you have music, heat and light. When these conditions perish you have nothing. As the impinging of oxygen against carbon in the flame produces light and heat, so the combination of elements in the nerves and brain produces the phenomena of life and intelligence. As the liver secretes bile, so the brain produces thought. Destroy the brain and mind disappears, as the music when the instrument is broken.
Look you and see the strife for existence. See you the myriads of human beings who have perished. The world is one vast charnel house, its material being worked over and over again in endless cycle. Tooth and claw to rend and tear; arrow, club, spear, sword, and gun to kill; the weak to fall, the strong and brutal to triumph, to multiply, and advance by the slaughter of its own weaker members. The atom you can not see with unaided eye devours and is devoured, and ascending to man, he is by turns the slayer and the slain.
There’s not an atom of the earth’s thick crust,Of earth or rock, or metals’ hardened rust,But has a myriad times been charged with life,And mingled in the vortex of its strife;And every grain has been a battle-fieldWhere murder boldly rushed with sword and shield.Turn back the rocky pages of earth’s lore,And every page is written o’er and o’erWith wanton waste. The weak are for the strong,And Might is victor, whether right or wrong.Enameled armor and tesselated scale,With conic tooth that broke the flinty mail;The shell protecting and the jaw which groundThe shell to dust, there side by side are found;The fin that sped the weak from danger’s path,The stronger fin that sped the captor’s wrath;A charnel house where, locked in endless strife,Cycle the balanced forces, Death and Life.
There’s not an atom of the earth’s thick crust,Of earth or rock, or metals’ hardened rust,But has a myriad times been charged with life,And mingled in the vortex of its strife;And every grain has been a battle-fieldWhere murder boldly rushed with sword and shield.Turn back the rocky pages of earth’s lore,And every page is written o’er and o’erWith wanton waste. The weak are for the strong,And Might is victor, whether right or wrong.Enameled armor and tesselated scale,With conic tooth that broke the flinty mail;The shell protecting and the jaw which groundThe shell to dust, there side by side are found;The fin that sped the weak from danger’s path,The stronger fin that sped the captor’s wrath;A charnel house where, locked in endless strife,Cycle the balanced forces, Death and Life.
If you seek for a meaning or a purpose you will find none. What you call design is only the harmony of fluctuating chances produced by countless failures.
Philosophy.—Invoke philosophy with her robes of snow, pretending to a knowledge of the world and its infinite destiny; it will tell you of the cycle of being; the succession of generations; that life and death complement each other, and that all you may hope for is change. Unceasing change is the abiding law, and he who grasps to hold, will find but shadows in his grasp.
Religion.—Religion may teach us a pessimistic view of the world, and to bow like cringing slaves unquestioningly to the rod. We may accept that all is for the best whether we understand it or not, as the unalterable decree of fate, yet as rational beings we recoil from this bondage, and the questions are ever present, of the purpose of this life and the evidences of that future of which the most doubting dream.
Religion, resting as it does on the immortality of the spirit, should answer us so plainly and absolutely that there could be no doubt. That there is weeping and broken hearts shows that it does not, or else that it makes that existence so terrible that the dread of it is more than that of annihilation. The fear of Hell, which has driven the world to madness, is now cast into the lumber room with other errors,outgrown, and in the free atmosphere one can not understand the terrors it once awakened. The arbitrary heaven is also passing away, and a more natural conception of the future life is gaining precedent. Yet the words of teachers of religion are cold and soulless, and even the poets, touched by the finger of a decaying faith, voice the incredulity of the age in lines which speak only in despair. Oh! poet of immortal song, how chilling to the heart the words that yet too often find response in its doubts and fears:
“And the stately ships go onTo their haven under the hill;But oh! for the touch of a vanished hand,And the sound of a voice that is still.“Break, break, break,At the foot of thy crags, O sea!But the tender grace of a day that is dead,Will never come back to me.”
“And the stately ships go onTo their haven under the hill;But oh! for the touch of a vanished hand,And the sound of a voice that is still.
“Break, break, break,At the foot of thy crags, O sea!But the tender grace of a day that is dead,Will never come back to me.”
There is little consolation to be found in these directions. Let us turn back to first principles; let us for a time forget the claims of scientists and take up the book of nature at her plain alphabet and ascertain whether these claims of material science have a sure foundation.
A Race Without Sight.—If the human race were born without organs of vision, man could form no idea of the beautiful and splendid phenomena revealed to the eye. The normal state would be blindness.Day and night would be marked by intervals of repose and activity, but the cloudy midnight and the radiance of the sun, the glories of morning, the splendors of sunset, the star-gemmed canopy of the cloudless night, the infinite changes, the phantasmagoria of heaven and earth, would be unknown. The flowers might bloom in beauty, their fragrance would delight, but their form and color would be unrecognized. The mind, deprived of the infinite series of sensations which flow into it through the sense of vision, would have none of the conceptions thereby engendered. If a being who could see should attempt to reveal to the sightless race the beauties of the world as seen by the eye in the light, they would treat him as an impostor relating an idle tale, to them incomprehensible.
A Race Without Hearing.—If to the deprivation of sight were added the loss of hearing, the vital powers would not be impaired; the organic functions would continue the same, but all sounds would cease and perfect silence reign. The mind could form no conception of music, the songs of birds, the sighing of the wind, the roar of the storm, or the soft modulations of the human voice. As nature would be voiceless, so man would be dumb. The gift of speech would be lost with the power of receiving the sounds of words. The soul, in silence and darkness, unable to communicate its thoughts with others, would be bereft of all the sensations, emotions, and conceptions which arise from seeing and hearing, nor could it be taught these by those who possessed these senses, for no conceptions could be formed of sights never seen, or sounds never heard.
Sensitiveness.—In like manner, the sensitive condition reveals a universe which is unknown to thesenses, and of which man is as profoundly ignorant as those born blind are of light. It is the heritage of all, yet manifested only at rare intervals in favored individuals. It is as it would be with the sense of sight, were thousands blind, while a few saw imperfectly, and only one with distinctness. The sight of that one would indicate what all might attain under favorable circumstances, as the perception of those who are sensitive shows what is possible in this direction. It is through this gateway that we are able to penetrate the arcana of a higher existence, and it is our purpose to go by easy steps along the pathway that leads into the vista stretching beyond this portal, into unexplored regions, of which scarcely a conception has yet been formed.
We have consciousness of spiritual realities, of an infinite after-life, and aspirations which it alone can satisfy, and for which this mortal sphere furnishes no provision. Shall we regard these aspirations as idle longings, and this consciousness as a baseless fancy? Or have we spiritual energies which have called this spiritual nature into being?
The eye is created in conformity to the laws of light, to receive the rays and allow their impingement on the optic nerves. It is proof of the existence of light. In the same manner, spiritual perception is evidence of the existence of spiritual energies. It would be quite as difficult for the mind to comprehend spiritual being, if without this consciousness, as for the blind to understand the beauties of light.
Sensitiveness is a faculty pertaining to the spiritual nature, and is acute in proportion as that spiritual nature dominates the physical senses. It is possessed by all, and by a few in a remarkable degree. It is variable in the same individual, is oftenthe result of drugs, of fatigue, of sleep, and may be induced or intensified by hypnotism or mesmerism. It may manifest itself suddenly and at long intervals, once only in a lifetime, or be a steadfast quality. It may have all degrees of acuteness, from impressibility scarcely distinguishable from the individual’s own thoughts, to the purest independent clairvoyance.
Conditions and Illustrations of Sensitiveness.—For one mind to influence another, the two must be in harmony, at least in certain points. The thought vibrations in one will not otherwise awake like vibrations in the other. Take for illustration two musical strings, one with fixed attachments, and the other with a moveable bridge or stop. Now if the first be set in vibration, the other, being on a different key, will not respond in unison, but the stop will slightly move; and if the vibrations continue, the stop will move forward until the exact length of chord is attained, and then both strings will vibrate in harmony, one repeating the notes of the other.
If an hundred musical instruments were placed in a room, only two of which were tuned alike, if one of these were touched, its mate would respond, but the others would remain silent.
These thought vibrations may be received suddenly like a flash, as in the case of premonitions and warnings of danger, the sensitive state lasting but a brief time; or it may be cultivated and become permanent with the individual. The hypnotic, or somnambulic subject, may be more or less affected at first, and slowly fall under the influence, until the continuous condition is the same as that in which a premonition is received.
As an illustration of the method by which this is accomplished, whether the operator be a spirit clad in a physical or in a celestial body, the improvements by age and use of the violin may be taken.
This instrument, the most perfect of all in its capacity for expressing the delicate feelings of the soul, gains its soft sweetness and rich perfection by use and age. The cremona, worth its weight in gold, may once have been harsh, with dissonant tones, rasping to the ear. The Tyrolese maker selects the smoothest wood his mountain affords, clear of grain, and free from flaw or blemish. He carves the parts with sedulous care and exhaustless patience; swell and curve and hollow are wrought, polished, and cemented together so as to make them as one. Then the delicate strings are drawn over the bridge, and the instrument tested. It may squeak or jar, and refuse, even in a master’s hands, to express his desire. But with every vibration of the strings it improves. Every movement changes its fibers, and forces them into harmonious accord. After a time they will all be in unison. The playing of a single tune may not produce this result; a score or a thousand may not. It may pass from hand to hand, and generation after generation may grow old and die, as each successive master touches its strings, before all its deepest qualities are expressed. Then its tones melt in voluptuous harmony; wail with the broken hearted; fill the soul with the gladness of delight; revive the murmur of the sombre pines; the song of the birds in the forest; the laughing of falling waters; the hoarse voice of the tempest with hail and lightning flash, rush of winds and burst of clouds. Nature speaks through the instrument, and vibrates the heart with every emotion, passion, and aspiration.
In the same manner, if a being independent of, and detached from the physical body, should attempt to impress its thoughts on a sensitive, it might no more than partially succeed after many trials. Each effort, however, would be more successful, for thought vibrations constantly tend to efface the causes of discord, and if the Intelligence is patient, and the sensitive submissive, the thoughts of the former would at last flow uninterruptedly into or through the mind of the latter.
And what is thus possible for a sensitive, in regard to an individual intelligence, is possible to acquire in relation to the thought atmosphere of the universe, or psychic-ether. If this be possible, if a being may become thus exquisitively sensitive, and receive the waves of thought as they traverse this ether, as the eye catches vibrations of light, that being would be a focus to receive the intelligence of all thinking beings in the universe.
The sensitive state, then, is the outcropping in mortal life, in apparently abnormal form, of that which is normal to the spirit of life. We thus conclude that its most astonishing development, as revealed, is immeasurably below its normal capabilities when freed from the limitation of the body. The permanent condition of a spiritual being after separation from the physical form must be that of the most perfect and delicately sensitive. What we see here in partial or total eclipse, is there in the glory of full light.
Thoughts not Words Impressed.—While Max Müller ardently supports his theory that thought itself depends upon the words which express it, we constantly meet with facts which indicate that theideais conveyed from one mind to another, and there isclothed in words according to the culture of the receiving mind. The vividness with which the idea is impressed insures the use of similar verbal clothing. An instance is reported by Dapson, in Deleuze, where a sealed letter was given a very susceptible magnetic subject. It reads:
“No other than the eye of Omnipotence can read this sentence in this envelope.Troy, New York, Aug.1837.”
“No other than the eye of Omnipotence can read this sentence in this envelope.
Troy, New York, Aug.1837.”
The subject read it:
“No other than the eye of Omnipotence can read this in this envelope.————— 1837.”
“No other than the eye of Omnipotence can read this in this envelope.————— 1837.”
He omitted “sentence,” and all the date but the year. It is to be observed that in all instances of thought transference or sensitiveness, the reproduction of names, dates, etc., expressed by arbitrary words, are the most difficult and unreliable, and this has been a source of doubt, and an argument against the truthfulness of the magnetic subject.
It requires a deeper hypnotic state to receive dates and names correctly, than connected ideas. It is because ideas and not the verbal form are received, that culture becomes of greatest value connected with sensitiveness, as will be amplified in a succeeding section, treating on misconceived sensitiveness, whereby is made possible the seemingly superhuman achievements of authors, philosophers, sages, statesmen, and inventors. It will also be more extendedly treated of in the chapter devoted to the consideration of Dreams.
The Sixth Sense.—In the normal state we know and understand the external world through and by the senses. The eye reveals to us the beauties of light, and by its aid the wondrous diversities of nature. The ear brings to the mind the varied sounds, makes oral speech and the sweet harmonies of music possible. The organ of smell sentinels the citadel of health against pestiferous odors, and gives the exquisite enjoyment of perfumes. Ordinarily we rely on these senses as our guides, and so complete is our reliance that we recognize no other avenue to knowledge of the external world; yet at times we find that our minds extend beyond the senses and have capabilities which can not be referred to them. There is an interior perception, which has been called the sixth sense, which, sensitive to impressions from supernal sources, at times rises above all the others. It is through this sense or better, this sensitive state, that we gain an insight into the spiritual nature of man. The senses would lead us away to a gross materialism, for they belong to the animal organization; this sensitiveness leads us in an opposite direction. We find through it another nature overlaid and obscured by the senses and their understanding. This sensitive state is the activity of the spiritual being, in the ratio of its perfection, and is really as normal as themost sensuous condition. The study of this state is the gateway to the understanding of our spiritual being, and the first lesson it teaches is that man is a dual creation; a spirit, an intelligent entity, clothed with, and circumscribed by, a physical body. Only so far as that body interferes with the activity of the spirit, is it of interest to us in the present discussion, which relates entirely to the spirit.
This sensitive state is possessed by many, and in many more it may be induced by proper means. It may be laid down as a rule that whatever weakens the physical faculties strengthens this spiritual perception. Thus it is often manifested in disease, after fatigue, or in the negative hours of sleep. Some drugs have the power of inducing it, and mesmerism is the strongest of all artificial means. I use the termsensitivewith the meaning here given, and from that meaning shall not deviate. Many who possess this power in a slight degree may not distinguish its perceptions from those of the senses with which they blend, but there are times when the mind passes into an entirely different state from that of its normal activity, that of sensitive receptivity, and what is usually termed intuition is intensified. I propose to study this sensitive state first in connection with that of wakefulness, and then with that of sleep; and from simple thought-reading to the reception of thought from supernal sources.
Hitherto the discussion of spirit has been considered impracticable by scientific methods, and theology and metaphysics have occupied the field. In this border-land between the known and the unknown, ignorance and charlatanry have held high carnival, and those who love scientific accuracy perhaps are excusable in regarding the belief inspiritual beings as a superstition; yet there has accumulated as folk lore, as myths, as an outside, out-of-the-way literature, a vast mass of material, some of which, it is true, is mere rubbish, through which gleams bright veins of truth, showing the close relations between the seen and the unseen universes. Here and there a sensitive mind has received the light in clearer effulgence, and made the surrounding gloom more densely impenetrable. At remote intervals the oriflamme of the spiritual conception of nature has flashed athwart the intervals of gross materialism, but religion, moral conduct, not knowledge, has been the motive. This age demands knowledge for its own sweet sake, assured that the highest morality will flow therefrom. In the study of the conditions of the mind, the various states of sleep, clairvoyance, somnambulism, etc., will be defined and illustrated.
Sleep.—Sleep is the “twin sister of death” only in appearance, for aside from poetic fancy, sleep is the negative condition of activity. In perfect sleep all the faculties of the mind are in repose, and the bodily functions go on with the least waste. It is essentially restful and recuperative. The waste of the body, its wear and tear of muscle and nerve is repaired; new cells take the place of those broken down, and the debris moves slowly forward to the excretory organs and is eliminated.
In this state of negative repose there is no manifestation of thought, and it is as unlike the clairvoyant or sensitive state as that of wakefulness; but shaded into this state of sleep, as into that of wakefulness, are various degrees of sensitiveness. The conditions of sleep are provocative of this impressibleness. Night is negative; the silence andthe vail of darkness shutting out external objects conduce to make the mind negative and susceptible.
At midnight is the culmination of this negativeness, and hence the ghastly dread of that hour has a foundation in fact, and is not an idle superstition. Ghosts may never appear, yet if they were to appear the midnight hour, of all others, would be assigned by the student cognizant of this fact for them to come like shafts of frozen moonshine, into the walks of men.
Mesmeric State.—Mesmerism, under whatever name, animal magnetism, hypnotism, etc., is a potent means in the study of psychology. It has made it possible to command many of the most evanescent phenomena, and allow of their careful examination, when otherwise they came at rare intervals and at such unexpected moments as made it impossible to carefully compare and study them. Somnambulism, clairvoyance, and that state of exquisite sensitiveness which makes us receptive of impressions transformed into dreams, may be commanded in a sensitive, and observed at leisure.
In the commencement we must free ourselves from the commonly received idea that sleep has any resemblance to any of these several states which are usually called magnetic, mesmeric, or clairvoyant sleep. As already stated, sleep is the negative of being, and more distinct from these states of exalted perception than waking. The incongruous and often incoherent visions which arise in the half-waking state, or when only a part of the mental faculties are at rest, are the ordinary dreams, which have no significance, and are very different in their origin and meaning from the impressionsreceived in the sensitive state, which is one of intense wakefulness and activity. The sensitive condition is possessed in a marked degree by about one in five, and may be induced in a still larger ratio. It is more frequently found in women than in men. It may be cultivated, and become an important factor in the character and happiness of the individual.
We will simply for convenience divide the sensitive state into the hypnotic, somnambulic and clairvoyant; but it must be borne in mind that these merge into each other; and that no sharp line can be drawn between them.
Mesmerism may be regarded as the method by which all of these states may be induced. The mesmeric state is equivalent to the hypnotic. After years of delay, mesmerism has been accepted under another name, that of hypnotism; but the theory of a “fluid” or specific influence is discarded. Hypnotists cannot, however, exceed the most common experiments without the facts demanding even as a working hypothesis, this specific influence.
The ticking of a watch held close to the ear, or intensely gazing at some object, will throw a sensitive into an abnormal condition, at the mercy of the “dominant idea,” and he becomes an automaton in the hands of an external influence. This is the hypnotic state, beyond which the “dominant idea” fails. A sensitive may be led by a “dominant idea,” but soon manifests a power which stretches beyond into an unexplored region of possibilities, exhibiting mental perceptions far more acute than those possess who are around him, or he himself possesses in his normal condition. Hypnotism as treated by its exponents is an extremely complicated state, ranging from the cataleptic to the independentclairvoyant. To define it with the usual narrow meaning is extremely misleading and unscientific.
There are two distinct states of hypnotism. The first is that in which most platform experiments are made. The sensitive is capable of carrying on conversations, answering questions, and is governed by a “dominant idea,” believing all the operator wishes, and doing as commanded.
The sensitive rapidly enters the next stage, when he becomes insensible to pain, and irresponsive to the address of any one except the operator. Until this stage is reached consciousness and memory are retained, a fact fatal to the theory of automatic action or “unconscious cerebration.” In this profound state the sensitive has no memory of events which occur. It is an induced, incipient somnambulism, the true counterpart of that which under proper condition appears spontaneously.
The report of the Committee on Hypnotism, vol. I., p. 95, of Proceedings of American Society for Psychical Research, shows that it confined its attention to fifty or sixty students of Harvard College. Of these about a dozen were affected, and of these, two were so good that attention was confined to them.
“The extraordinary mixture, in the hypnotic trance, of preternatural refinement of discrimination with the grossest insensibility, is one of the most remarkable features of the condition. A blank sheet of paper, with fine-cut edges, without watermarks or any thing which could lead to the recognition of one side or edge from the other, is shown to the subject with the statement that it is a photograph of a well-known face. As soon as he distinctly sees the photograph upon its surface, he is told thatit will float off from the paper, make a voyage around the walls of the room, and then return to the paper again. During this imaginary performance, he sees it successfully on the various regions of the wall; but if the paper is meanwhile secretly turned over, and handed to him upside down, or with its under surface on top, he instantly recognizes the change, and seeing the portrait in the altered position of the paper, turns the latter about, ‘to get the portrait right.’”
In the hypnotic state the subject is under the control of the operator, and in a great degree an automaton; in the somnambulic, he in part regains his individuality, and in certain lines of thought and action is superior to himself in his waking moments. Natural somnambulism comes without warning, and illustrates the condition induced by mesmeric passes.
Somnambulism.—Sleep waking, or sleep walking, whatever may be its cause, mental derangement by disease or intense exertion of mind or body, or a constitutional inclination thereto, is of deepest interest to the psychologist as proving the independence of the spirit of the physical senses. The somnambulist has lost the use of his senses. He feels, hears and sees nothing by touch, ear or eye, and yet the objects to which his attention is drawn are plainly perceptible.
The Archbishop of Bordeaux is authority for the following narrative: A young clergyman was in the habit of rising from his bed, and writing his sermons while asleep. When he had written a page he would read it aloud and correct it. Once in altering the expression “ce devin enfant,” he substituted the word “adorable” for “devin,” which, commencingwith a vowel, required that “ce” before it should be changed to “cet;” he accordingly added the “t.” While he was writing the Archbishop held a piece of pasteboard under his chin to prevent him seeing what he was writing, but he went on without being in the least incommoded. The paper on which he was writing was removed and another piece substituted, but he at once perceived the change. He also wrote pieces of music with his eyes closed. He once wrote the words under the notes too large, but discovering his mistake, he erased and rewrote them. He certainly did not see with his eyes and yet the vision was perfect.
The case of Jane C. Rider, known as the Springfield somnambulist, created in its time much wonder and speculation among intelligent persons acquainted with the facts. A full account of it was published in the BostonMedical and Surgical Journal, Volume XI., Numbers 4 and 5. Miss Rider would walk in her sleep, attend to domestic duties in the dark or with her eyes bandaged, and read in a dark room with her eyes covered with cotton batting, over which was tied a black silk handkerchief. She learned without difficulty to play at backgammon while in this state, and would generally beat her antagonist, though in her normal state she knew nothing about the game.
A young lady, while at school, succeeded in her Latin exercises without devoting much time or attention to them, apparently. At length the secret of her easy progress was discovered. She was observed to leave her room at night, take her class-book, and go to a certain place on the banks of a small stream, where she remained but a short time and then returned to the house. In the morning she was invariably unconscious of what had occurredduring the night; but a glance at the lesson of the day usually resulted in the discovery that it was already quite familiar to her.
A young man on a farm in Australia, after a hard day’s work, went to sleep on a sofa; after some little time he arose, passed through several gates, opening and fastening them. Reaching the shed, he took off his coat, sharpened his shears, caught a sheep, and had just finished shearing it when his companions came with lanterns in search of him. The shock of awaking caused him to tremble like a leaf, but he soon recovered. The sheep was shorn as perfectly as if the work had been done in broad daylight.
Moral Effect of Mesmerism.—Dr. Voisin recommends a suggestive application of mesmerism. He experimented on a coarse, debauched and lazy woman, who was susceptible to magnetism; and kept her in the mesmeric sleep ten or twelve hours a day, and to its value as a curative agent he added moral education. During her sleep he suggested ideas of obedience, of submission, of decency, and exhorted her to useful labor. In this sleep she memorized whole pages of moral books. A complete transformation was effected in her in a few months.
What a glorious field here opens for the moral reformer! The calloused criminal who will not listen to moral suasion, deaf alike to entreaty and prayer, may be hypnotized, and in that susceptible condition taught the Lord’s Prayer and moral precepts; his moral nature roused and thus be transformed into a new being. The influence of some men when brought into contact with criminals is explained by their strong mesmeric or hypnotic influence.They always lift up those they control. They are born masters, though they may not understand the cause of their strength.
Trance and Clairvoyance.—The trance or clairvoyant state has been observed in all ages and among all races of mankind. It has, in seasons of great religious excitement, become epidemic, the devotee falling in convulsions, becoming cataleptic, and after hours, days, or even months of apparent death, awakening with mind overwrought with visions of the strange world in which it had dwelt during the period of unconsciousness.
The records of clairvoyance are as old as history. If prophecy, the “clear seeing of the future,” be its fruit, the prophets and sages of the past were all more or less endowed with this gift. Socrates and Apollonius predicted, and were conscious of, events transpiring at remote distances. Cicero mentions that when the revelations are being given, someone must be present to record them, as “these sleepers do not retain any recollection of them.” Pliny, speaking of the celebrated Hermotimus, of Clazomenæ, remarks that his soul separated itself from the body, and wandered in various parts of the earth, relating events occurring in distant places. During the period of inspiration his body was insensible. The day of the battle of Pharsalia, Cornelius, a priest of profound piety, described while in Padua, as though present, every feature of the fight. Nicephorus says that when the unfortunate Valens, taking refuge in a barn, was burned by the Goths, a hermit named Paul, in a fit of ecstasy, cried out to those who were with him: “It is now that Valens burns.” Tertulian describes two females, celebrated for their piety and ecstasy, that they entered thatstate in the midst of the congregation, revealed celestial secrets, and knew the innermost hearts of persons.
St. Justin affirms that the sibyls foretold events correctly, and quotes Plato as coinciding with him in that view. St. Athenagoras says of the faculty of prescience, that “it is proper to the soul.” Volumes might be readily filled with quotations like the foregoing, showing that clairvoyance has been received as true by profound thinkers in every age. Swedenborg, Zschokke, Davis, are not peculiarities of modern times, but repetitions of Socrates, Apollonius, and countless others who deeply impressed their personality on their times.
What is Clairvoyance?—Clairvoyance is a peculiar state of impressibility, presenting gradations from semi-consciousness to profound and death-like trance. Whether natural, or induced by artificial means, the attending phenomena are similar. In its most perfect form the body is in deepest sleep. A flame may be applied to it without producing the quiver of a nerve; the most pungent substances have no effect on the nostrils; pins or needles thrust into the most sensitive part give no pain; surgical operations may be performed without being felt. Hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling, as well as seeing, are seemingly independent of the physical organs. The muscular system is either relaxed or rigid; the circulation impeded in some cases until the pulse becomes imperceptible; and respiration leaves no stain on a mirror held over the nostrils.
In passing into this state, the extremities become cold, the brain congested, the vital powers sink, a dreamy unconsciousness steals over the faculties of the mind. There is a sensation of sinking or floating.After a time the perceptions become intensified; we can not say the senses are intensified, for they are of the body, which for the time, is insensible.
The mind sees without the physical organs of vision, hears without the organs of hearing, and feeling becomes a refined consciousness, which brings iten rapportwith the intelligence of the world. The more death-like the conditions of the body, the more lucid the mind, which for the time owes it no fealty.
If, as there is every reason to believe, clairvoyance depends on the unfolding of the spirit’s perception, then the extent of that unfolding marks the degree of its perfection. However great or small this may be, the state itself is the same, differing only in degree, whether observed in the Pythian or Delphic oracle, the visions of St. John, the trance of Mohammed, the epidemic catalepsy of religious revivals, or the illumination of Swedenborg. The revelations made have a general resemblance, but they are so colored by surrounding circumstances that they are extremely fallible. The tendency of the trance is to make objective the subjective ideas acquired by education. This is exhibited in cases of religious ecstasy and trance, when the subject sees visions of winged angels and of Christ; transforming dogmas and beliefs into objective realities. Such revelations, of course, have no more value than the illusory visions of the fever-stricken patient.
Yet there is a profound state which sets this aside, and divests the mind of all trammels, and brings it into direct contact with the thought atmosphere of the world—the psycho-ether. Time and space for it, then, have no existence, and matter is transparent.
The weakening of the physical powers by disease is favorable to sensitiveness. As the senses are deadened, the powers of the interior consciousness are quickened, and a new world rises above the horizon of the corporeal senses.
Evidence of the truth of clairvoyance was given in theBrooklyn Eagle, soon after the loss of the “Arctic,” in 1854. The wife, son and daughter of Captain Collins were making the tour of Europe, and the Captain, to gratify a passing whim, consulted a clairvoyant as to their locality. The answer was that they were at that time visiting a church, which was accurately described. When the wife’s letter came, it contained a narrative of a visit to a church at exactly the same hour, describing it as the clairvoyant had done, thus showing that the communication was quite correct.
As the family had arranged to return on the “Arctic,” and as the ship was a day late, of course Captain Collins became anxious. Sunday and Monday passed without news from the ship, and his anxiety increased. He thought of the clairvoyant and called on her. At first, although apparently deeply entranced, she could see nothing. Everything was in a cloud. At length she was able to see the three persons standing on the deck of a ship, amid great confusion, and almost concealed in fog and mist. This was all she could discern. This was nearly two days before the telegraph announced the loss of the “Arctic,” and the arrival of a boat-load of survivors on the Canadian coast. But the Collins family were not among the saved.
If we compare what may be called artificially induced with the spontaneous clairvoyance, we shall find them similar. The first example is of a sensitive, a youth of seventeen, who was blindfolded bymeans of soft paper folded double, and then gummed over his eyelids, and a silk handkerchief tied over this paper. Under these circumstances the sensitive was able to take a pack of cards and select any one called for, read the pages of a book, although those present were ignorant of the words, his sensitiveness being entirely independent of the knowledge of those around him.
Clairvoyance from Disease.—There are instances where persons have fallen into this sensitive or clairvoyant state by disease or a nervous shock, and in the prolonged trance which followed, manifested all the phenomena usual to the induced somnambulic or clairvoyant state, even in higher degree. Of these Mollie Fancher is one of the best examples. She was called the “sleepless girl of Brooklyn,” and for nine years, it is claimed by competent authority, did not sleep, and ate so little food that it was claimed she did not partake of any. She was, at fifteen years of age, healthy, but delicately organized. At that time she was thrown from a street car, and her head and body injured. A day or two afterwards she was seized with violent spasms. One by one her senses failed. Sight was first to leave, and hearing followed. Then she lost her speech, and then the ability to swallow. This last she had not been known to exercise for nine years, and during the same length of time her eyelids were closed. She took no sleep, unless the intervals of trance be called sleep. She was breathless and rigid as dead. These spasms lasted less than a minute, and were accompanied with, or followed by, violent muscular contortions.
Her lower limbs became twisted entirely around each other. Her right arm was bent upward and doubled under her head. She had no use of her righthand at all, and of the left hand only the thumb and little finger. Lying all the time, night and day, upon her right side, her right hand cramped under her neck, and only her left free, with closed eyes, and working back of her head, as she was forced to do, she wrought the most exquisite worsted work and wax flowers. The darkness or light were all the same to her; in fact, the light was painful to her, and even the gas-light was placed in the further corner of the room and shaded. She regained hearing and speech after several years, but otherwise her conditions remained unchanged. She knew the thoughts of those who came near her; printed pages or a sealed letter held in her hand back of her head were readily read. Mr. Henry Parkhurst made many experiments to test her powers. She repeatedly read sealed letters he gave her, and, as a crucial test, he took a letter at random from the waste basket of an acquaintance, tore it in strips, and then cut the stripes into squares. He shook the pieces well together, put them into an envelope, and sealed it. This he handed the blind girl. She passed her hand over it several times, took a pencil and wrote the letter verbatim. Mr. Parkhurst opened the envelope, arranged the pieces, and found she had made a perfect copy.
Not satisfied, with the assistance of two friends, Mr. Parkhurst secured an ancient mining report, yellow with age, and with averted face, so that he might not see the contents, he tore out a page of tabulated figures with explanation. This he folded and tore into scores of pieces. Some of the pieces fell on the floor and were allowed to remain there. The others he put in an envelope and sealed, and handed to one of his assistants, who put it in another envelope, which he also sealed and handed tothe third, who enclosed it in the same manner. Then the party went to Miss Fancher’s room, and asked her to give them the contents of the envelope. She took it in her hand and wrote, “It is nonsense; figures in which there are blank places, words that are incomplete, and sentences in which words are missing.” She wrote on, in some sentences skipping three or four words, and began with the last five letters of a word having ten letters. The table of figures she made contained blank spaces, but she wrote it out; and the gentleman returned to Mr. Parkhurst’s, where they arranged the pieces in their original form. They found that the copy made by Miss Fancier was absolutely correct, and the blank spaces represented the pieces left on the floor. When these were fitted in, the broken sentences were complete.
Dr. Spier, from the first her attending physician, watched her case with unrelenting vigilance, and made a full record of her changing symptoms. One day he received a note from her, warning him that an attempt would be made to rob him, and the next day the attempt was made. She knew when he was coming, and would mention the moment he started from his residence, a mile away. In the early stages of her illness, Dr. Spier administered an emetic to test whether the claim that she had not partaken of food was true. It gave her great pain, and proved that her stomach was empty. She well knew the nature of the medicine, although purposely he attempted to keep it from her. Soon after she went into the rigid condition which lasted nine years. When she began to recover, the memory of these nine years was gone, and she only remembered the incidents of the previous. Nine years and a half after administering the test, when Dr. Spierentered the room, Miss Fancher broke out with: “You thought I didn’t know you gave me that medicine, but I did. You wanted to learn if food was in my stomach, but found none there. It made me very sick. You will not do so again, will you?”
Thus she returned after all that time to the thought which she had at the moment of entering on that strange experience. She had a double life, and did not remember anything which occurred in her trance.
A Similar Case in England.—The case of Mollie Fancher is not alone, although, perhaps, not more remarkable than that of Miss Eliza Hamilton of England. A physician visited her in 1882, when she was fourteen years of age. He found that in 1881 she had met with a severe injury which had caused paralysis of her limbs and right arm. She had been treated at the hospital for four months, at the end of which time she ceased to take food and returned home. He saw her about two months thereafter, and thus speaks of her: “She frequently passes into a trance condition, in which her left arm becomes as stiff and immovable as her right one. She sings hymns and repeats passages from the Bible, but is quite insensible to pain when pinched or pricked with a pin; nor does she hear or speak when addressed. When she revives, she tells her friends that she has been to various places and seen various people, and describes conversations which she has had, and objects she has seen in the rooms of persons she has been visiting. These descriptions, on inquiry, are found to be correct.... At times she speaks of having been in the company of persons with whom she was acquainted in this world, but who have passed away;and she tells her friends that they have become much more beautiful, and have cut off the infirmities with which they were afflicted while here. She often describes events which are about to happen to her and are always fulfilled exactly as she predicts.”
Her father read in her presence a letter he had received from a friend in Leeds, speaking of the loss of his daughter, about whose fate he and his family were very unhappy, as she had disappeared nearly a month before and left no trace. Eliza went into the trance state, and cried out, “Rejoice! I have found the lost girl! She is happy in the angel world.” She said the girl had fallen into dark water where dyers washed their cloths; that her friends could not have found her had they sought her there, but now the body had floated a few miles and could be found in the River Aire. The body was found as described.
Now, knowing that her eyes were closed, that she could not hear, that her bodily senses were in profound lethargy, how are we to account for the intensivity and keenness of sight, the quick deftness of figures enabling her to make the most beautiful contrast of colors in her worsteds, or the delicate adjustment of the petals of her flowers? Her mental powers were exceedingly exalted, and scarcely a question could be asked her but she correctly answered.
In this case the independence of the mind of the physical body shown in every instance of clairvoyance, is proven beyond cavil or doubt. If it is demonstrated that the mind sees without the aid of eyes, hears when the ears are deaf, feels when the nerves of sensation are at rest, it follows that it is independent of these outward avenues, and hasother channels of communication with the external world essentially its own.
It must be here observed that as long as the mind is united with the body, usually the physical senses overlay and conceal the higher psychic faculties. The mind seemingly is dependent on the body, and is changeful to corporeal conditions. It becomes enfeebled by disease, by accidents to the brain, and at times disappears, like a lingering spark from a flame, in the dotage of age. This, however, is only external appearance, arising from the limitations fixed by the contact with physical matter, as the light of the sun may be shut out by an opaque body.
The case of Laura Bridgeman is an illustration and evidence from another point of view that the intellect is, in a measure at least, independent of the senses. Completely deprived of sight and hearing at an early period of childhood, she was a blind and deaf mute. She never had any knowledge, through the eyes, of the bright landscape, of the glorious sun, morning and evening, the blue sky, the floating clouds, the waving trees, the green hills, the beautiful flowers. All was darkness and profound night. She never heard the exquisite notes of harmony, of instrument or modulated voice, the sigh of winds, the carol of birds. To her all had been unbroken silence. Dr. Howe, her kind and angelic teacher, says: “As soon as she could walk she began to explore the rooms of the house. She became familiar with forms, density, weight, and heat, of every article she could lay her hands upon.... An attempt was made to give her knowledge of arbitrary signs by which she could interchange thoughts with others. There was one of two ways to be adopted: Either to go on and build up a languageof signs which she had already commenced herself, or to teach her the purely arbitrary language in common use; that is, to give her a sign for every individual thing, or to give her a knowledge of letters, by combinations by which she could express her ideas of the existence, and the mode and condition of existence of anything. The former would have been easy, but very ineffectual; the latter seemed difficult, but if accomplished, very effectual. I determined, therefore, to try the latter.”
After describing the process by which he taught her to associate names with things, he goes on to say; “Hitherto the process had been mechanical, and the success about as great as teaching a knowing dog a variety of tricks. The poor child had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated everything her teacher did. But now the truth began to flash upon her; her intellect began to work; she perceived that here was a way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was in her mind, and show it to another mind, and at once her countenance lighted up with a human expression. It was no longer a dog or a parrot; it was an immortal soul, eagerly seizing upon a link of union with other spirits! I could almost fix upon the moment the truth first dawned upon her mind, and spread its light to her countenance. I saw that the great obstacle was overcome, and henceforth nothing but patient perseverance, and plain, straight-forward efforts were to be used.”
At the end of the year, a report of the case was made, from which the following extract is taken: “It has been ascertained beyond a possibility of a doubt, that she can not see a ray of light, can not hear the least sound, and never exercises her sense of smell if she has any. Thus her mind dwells indarkness and stillness, as profound as that of a closed tomb at midnight. Of beautiful sights, sweet sounds, and pleasant odors, she has no perception; nevertheless, she is happy and playful as a lamb, a bird, and the enjoyment of her intellectual faculties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her a vivid pleasure, which is plainly marked in her expressive features.... In her intellectual character, it was pleasing to observe an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a quick perception of the relation of things. In her moral character, it is beautiful to behold her continued goodness, her keen enjoyment of existence, her expansive love, her unhesitating confidence, her sympathy with suffering, her conscientiousness, truthfulness and hopefulness.”
Her spirit was locked within her body without the least contact with the world through the most useful senses; yet she not only thought, but thought in the same manner as those who possess these senses in perfection. If thought depends on the senses, then the quality of thought should change when deprived of the senses. It is true that when thus fettered in expression, it does not escape the limitations of its surroundings, yet in the struggle we see the indication of the limitless possibilities of the spirit when these are cast aside.