Chapter III: Part 3

There is a class of men called _Cani_, or _Shaycana_, who are supposed to have the power of ejecting and frightening away troublesome spirits by the performance of certain mystic ceremonies. It is requisite, first, to ascertain whether the offending ghost is that of a stranger, or if it belong to any deceased member of the family; for it would seem that much more powerful incantations are required to get rid of a family ghost, which seems to have the opinion that it has a right to haunt its relations in the flesh, than to eject the ghost of a stranger. The latter, according to Dr. Buchanan, may be got rid of for a fanam, or about ninepence sterling; the former requires expensive sacrifices and many prayers, therefore the fee is much larger.

The Chinese have a great dread of ghosts, particularly of the ghosts of those who have come to an untimely end. They suspend in their houses, for the purpose of preventing the entrance of these spirits, and of defending themselves from their influence, a cruciform piece of iron, to which is attached pieces of perforated money, the coinage of emperors who have been deified, and who are conceived to exercise a protective power over their votaries.

The superstitions of the modern Egyptians and of the Arabs are rich in ghosts.

The term _éfreet_ is applied to the ghosts of dead persons, as well as to evil genii, by the Egyptians; and the following story, related by Mr. Lane, will illustrate the nature of this superstition as it is entertained by that people.

"I had once a humorous cook, who was somewhat addicted to the intoxicating hhasheesh: soon after he had entered my service, I heard him, one evening, muttering and exclaiming on the stairs, as if in surprise at some event; and then politely saying, "But why are you sitting here in the draught? Do me the favour to come up into the kitchen, and amuse me with your conversation a little." The civil address not being answered, was repeated and varied several times, till I called out to the man, and asked him to whom he was speaking. "The éfreet of a Turkish soldier," he replied, "is sitting on the stairs, smoking his pipe, and refuses to move; he came up from the well below: pray step and see him." On my going to the stairs, and telling the servant that I could see nothing, he only remarked that it was because I had a clear conscience. He was told afterwards that the house had long been haunted; but asserted that he had not been previously informed of the supposed cause; which was the fact of a Turkish soldier having been murdered there. My cook professed to see this éfreet frequently after."[37]

The Arabs entertain a considerable degree of fear and respect for ghosts.

Mr. Bayle St. John states that when travelling through the Libyan desert, in 1847, he saw a burial-place of the Bedouin Arabs, in the centre of which were confusedly scattered "camel-howdahs" (_tachterwans_), stirrups, household utensils, small ploughs, &c., which had been left there by the Arabs, when commencing a journey, under the care of the ghost of a defunct sheikh, who had been interred there.[38]

Some of the aboriginal tribes of South America believe in the occasional apparition of the souls of the dead.

Soon after the Roman Catholic mission was established at Bahia, an eclipse of the moon occurred; the savages, fully armed, rushed in terror to the mission, and when the priest inquired the cause of their alarm, they responded that the moon was the abode of the souls of the dead, and that on that night they had collected there in such numbers that they darkened its surface: this was a sure sign of evil.

Such is a brief sketch of the ghost-belief of several nations, ancient and modern.

This belief, in its essential characteristics, was the same in the remote periods of antiquity as in more recent times; and a similar analogy exists between the modifications of it which are now entertained in different and widely separated countries.

The variations which it is found to possess are dependent upon those peculiarities of habit, religion, and social life which characterize each nation. This fact gives an important clue by which we may unravel the actual nature of the phenomena which are embodied in the belief. But previously to entering upon this task it is requisite to point out a remote consequence of mythological and legendary lore which exercises a highly important influence on the minds of most if not all persons at the present time.

The numerous myths which were retained, the implicit faith reposed in them, and the great extent to which the practice of the occult sciences was carried in the Middle Ages, fostered ideas respecting the influence which supernatural beings exercised in the ordinary affairs of life, which rivalled in extent and variety those entertained before the Christian era; but they received perhaps a more gloomy character from the doctrine of the agency of devils.

The prevalence of these superstitions throws a wild and weird-like shadow over the history of those periods, and one of the chief results was that the records of local and general events became pregnant with mysterious occurrences and supernatural interpositions; and a mass of legends, teeming with remnants of ancient myths, more or less modified, giants, demons, witches, wizards, ghosts, portents, &c., have been perpetuated to modern times, and have formed an inexhaustible mine to the novelist and romance-writer.

There are few localities in England which do not possess legends or tradition of this nature; and the standard nursery and children's tales are full of supernatural personages and occurrences in which are set aside all the known laws of matter and force, and time and space are alike annihilated. Many of these tales are of great interest, for in them we find degenerated forms of some of the most ancient traditions and myths of our own and other races.

The adventures of _Jack the Giant-Killer_, the most celebrated of all celebrated nursery heroes, are for the most part derived from the fabulous era of our own country, and from Scandinavian mythology; and the whole tale is a degraded and vitiated tradition in which the deeds of Corineus, a celebrated personage in the mythical history of Britain, and Prince Arthur; the adventures of Thor, the god of thunder, and other Scandinavian deities, are jumbled together in strange confusion.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his British History[39] states that the early inhabitants of this island were giants. Brutus, a grandson of Ascanius, the companion of Æneas in his flight from Troy, and Corineus, also of Trojan descent, guided by a dream, discovered Britain, and delighted with "the pleasant situation of the place, the plenty of rivers abounding with fish, and the engaging prospect of its woods," they became desirous of fixing their habitation in so desirable a country, and landing, drove the giants into the fastnesses of the mountains, and divided the country.

To Corineus was apportioned that part of the island which we call Cornwall, and it is recorded that he had selected this portion of the island for his share, because "it was a diversion to him to encounter the said giants, which were in greater numbers there than in all the other provinces that fell to the share of his companions."

Corineus is described as being "an ardent man in matters of council, and of great courage and boldness; who in an encounter with any person, even of gigantic stature, would immediately overthrow him as if he were a child."

In the same fabulous history (B. X, ch. 3) it is stated, that a giant who had invaded our shores, and taken refuge at the top of St. Michael's Mount, was attacked by King Arthur in the night and killed; the country being thus freed "from a most destructive and voracious monster."

Some of Jack's principal adventures are derived from the ancient Eddas and Sagas of Scandinavia.

The incident which represents Jack as having overheard a giant, upon whose hospitality he had intruded, muttering--

"Though you lodge with me this night,
You shall not see the morning light;
My club shall dash your brains out quite;"

and in which he had evaded the catastrophe by placing a log of wood in the bed, he lying quietly in a corner, while the giant furiously beat with his club the inanimate object, thinking to dash him to pieces; and the delightfully cool response of Jack to the wonder-struck giant when he beheld him safe and sound in the morning, and inquired if he had not been disturbed in the night,--"No, nothing worth mentioning, I believe a rat struck me with his tail two or three times:"--this incident is a modification of an adventure which occurred to Thor on his journey to the land of giants, and it is found in some form or other in the folk-lore of every nation in the north of Europe.

Thor, while journeying to the land of giants, met with one of that race named Skrymir. They formed a companionship, and the whole of the provisions were placed in the giant's wallet. At night, when they stopped to rest, Skrymir at once lay down and fell asleep, previously handing the wallet to Thor in order that he might refresh himself. Thor was unable to open it, and wroth with the giant for his apparent insensibility and the mode in which he had tied the knots, he seized his mighty hammer and flung it at the giant's head. Skrymir awaking, asked whether a leaf had fallen on his head, and then he fell asleep again. Thor again struck him with his hammer, and it apparently sank deep into his skull; and the giant again awoke, and asked, "Did an acorn fall on my head? How fares it with thee, Thor?" Thor, incensed beyond measure, waited until the giant again slept, and then exerting all his power, dashed his hammer at the head of the sleeping monster, into which it sank up to the handle. Skrymir, rising up, rubbed his cheek and said, "Are there any birds perched on this tree? Methought, when I awoke, some moss from the branches fell on my head."

Skrymir, distrusting Thor, had before he slept interposed a huge rock betwixt himself and the god, and upon this Thor had unwittingly exercised his strength.

The adventure in which Jack is represented as outwitting a giant in eating, by placing his food in a large leathern receptacle beneath his vesture, and then ripping it up, and defying the giant to do the same, whereupon the giant seizes a knife, plunges it into his breast and kills himself, is contained also in stories which are prevalent among the Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Servians, and Persians.

The Swedish version is as follows:--"In the evening, when the giant and his boy were about to sup, the crone placed a large dish of porridge before them. "That would be excellent," said the boy, "if we were to try which could eat the most, father or I." The giant was ready for the trial, and they began to eat with all their might. But the boy was crafty: he had tied his wallet before his chest, and for every spoonful that entered his mouth, he let two fall into the wallet. When the giant had despatched seven bowls of porridge, he had taken his fill, and sat puffing and blowing, and unable to swallow another spoonful; but the boy continued with just as much good-will as when he began. The giant asked him how it was, that he who was so little could eat so much. "Father, I will soon show you: when I have eaten as much as I can contain, I slit up my stomach, and then I can take in as much again." Saying these words, he took a knife and ripped up the wallet, so that the porridge ran out. The giant thought this a capital plan, and that he would do the like. But when he stuck the knife in his stomach, the blood began to flow, and the end of the matter was that it proved his death."[40]

The sword of sharpness, and the cloak which rendered the wearer invisible, and by the aid of which Jack won so many important victories, are two of the principal supernatural elements in the _Nibelungenlied_. In this ancient legend, which contains the same tragical story as the still more ancient Scandinavian poem, the _Völundar-Kvida_, the sword "Balmurg" is described:--

"a broad and mighty blade,
With such keen-cutting edges, that straight its way it made,
Where'er it smote on helmet:"

and the cloud-cloak which Siegfried took from the dwarf Albric, is pourtrayed as--

"A vesture that hight cloud-cloak, marvellous to tell,
Whoever has it on him, may keep him safe and well
From cuts and stabs of foemen; him none can hear or see,
As soon as he is in it, but see and hear can he
Whate'er he will around him, and thus must needs prevail;
He grows besides far stronger; so goes the wondrous tale."[41]

The story of _Cinderella, or the Glass Slipper_, is of great antiquity, and versions of it are found in many countries.

Ælian, who lived about A.D. 225, relates that, as Rhodope, a celebrated Greek courtezan, who had been carried into Egypt, was bathing one day, an eagle carried off one of her slippers, and as it flew over Memphis, where king Psammetichus was at that time sitting in tribunal, it let fall the sandal into his bosom. Astonished at the occurrence, and at the smallness of the sandal, he caused inquiries to be made for its owner, whom, when he had discovered, he married.

Old versions of this story are found in Norway, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy, Wallachia, Servia, Russia, Poland, and Wales.[42]

In _Jack and the Bean-stalk_, the bean is evidently a version of the ash Ygdrasil of the Edda, reaching from hell to heaven; and the golden hen, harp, &c., are familiar features in northern stories.

_Puss in Boots_, the _Seven-league Boots_, &c., have their prototypes in Scandinavian folk-lore; and the two last-mentioned tales, as well as others, are probably of considerable antiquity.

Tales derived from these sources and composed of such elements, and fables in which beasts, birds, and fishes are represented as speaking and reasoning in a manner that puts man to the blush, are among the earliest things engrafted in the infant mind; and ever now

"By night
The village-matron round the blazing hearth,
Suspends the infant-audience with her tales,
Breathing astonishment--of witching rhymes,
Of evil spirits: of the death-bed call
Of him who robb'd the widow, and devoured
The orphan's portion: of unquiet souls
Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt
Of deeds in life concealed; of shapes that walk
At dead of night, and clank their chains and wave
The torch of hell around the murderer's bed.
At every solemn pause the crowd recoil,
Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd
With shiv'ring sighs; till eager for the event,
Around the beldam all erect they hang,
Each trembling heart with grateful terror quell'd."

Ideas of mysterious and supernatural powers, vague, undefined, and frightful, are thus instilled into the child, and influence it unchecked and uncontrolled by the Scriptural doctrines of the invisible which are taught to it. At first the two trains of thought derived from these antithetical sources go on separately and distinctly; the more frightful and wonderful events of legendary lore and fable having a much greater influence, and forming a deeper impression on the mind of the child, whose reasoning powers are still in abeyance to the emotions, than the Scriptural doctrines of the supernatural. As it advances in years these trains of thought insensibly blend; the more rampant absurdities of the supernatural framework of legendary and ghost-lore are discarded; but the less obvious and more insidious portions remain to a greater or less extent, and they are so graven in the mind, that they become part and parcel of it, and in whatever manner they may be subsequently modified in form, it is probable that they are never eradicated, but form a medium which gives a false and deceptive gloss to all our ideas upon those matters which are not immediately within the ken of reason, or which are more clearly attributable to other agency than the forces of the material word--such matters, for example, as are contained in Holy Writ.

Hence our ideas of the supernatural are derived from two sources--from legendary lore and from Scripture; and this results, that although in after-life the more glaring errors and absurdities of the former are removed, those only being retained which are thought to be compatible with Holy Writ, yet the idea of the supernatural thus obtained, foreign from revelation, is retained in a vague and undefined form, and its origin and sources being lost sight of, it is regarded as an innate consciousness of the existence of supernatural beings, and prompts to the ready reception and belief of mysterious and not readily explicable phenomena being the result of supernatural agency.

That proclivity to the belief in supernatural interpositions, that vague notion of spiritual beings, that so-called innate consciousness of the existence of the supernatural, which most persons possess more or less of, and which is totally inconsistent with the clear and perfect doctrine of the invisible taught in the Gospel, is, we believe, derived solely from the infant mind and earlier periods of youth being poisoned by the supernatural events and phenomena detailed in fabulous, legendary, and ghost-lore.[43]

This substratum of superstition is the prime cause of the retention of those figments of degenerated and christianized mythology which are yet found among us, and for the persistence of the most generally received of these figments--_ghosts_. It is also a highly important element in the formation of that state of the mind which is from time to time manifested in singular and wide-spreading delusions respecting the communication of the spirit-world with man, and of which we have examples before us at the present time in the prevalent follies of "spirit-rapping" and "table-talking."

The belief in ghosts does not now possess those glaring features which were attached to it at the commencement of the present century, hence it is less obtrusive; but it is very far from being extinguished, as some would teach, and its "etiology" is of interest, because it leads to the elucidation of the principal causes and sources of the fallacies to which the senses of man are subject, and by which he has been led in the remotest periods of antiquity, as well as at the present time, to frame those mighty trammels of superstition from which the mind in vain strives to disentangle itself completely.

The doctrine that the spirits of the dead return to visit the scenes which were dear to them during the body's existence, is in itself awfully solemn and sublime. Man, prone to believe in supernatural interpositions (from causes already explained), and trusting altogether to the evidence of his senses, for many ages received this doctrine unquestioned; and aided by a fertile imagination, he clothed it with attributes which, although absurd in the main, yet as appealing to some of the deepest and warmest affections and passions of our nature, cannot even now be contemplated without exciting sensations of awe, if not fear.

The thought that the spirits of those who, during life, were bound to us by the closest ties of affection, are ever near, scrutinizing our actions and thoughts, and prompting us ever and anon to that course which would most tend to our profit here and our joy hereafter[44]--shielding us, like guardian angels, from the wiles of those wandering spirits who, like the "Wicked One" that came softly up to Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and "whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind,"[45] seek to tempt us to destruction,--such a thought thrills through the soul of every one, and fills it with strange and undefined emotions of blended joy and fear.

Few can free themselves altogether from the emotion of terror which is almost necessarily connected with scenes polluted by murder, or by other outbreaks of man's foulest passions. This feeling acting on the minds of the superstitious and ignorant, has led them to people with spectres all those places which have obtained notoriety from being the scene of some terrible ebullition of human frailty and wickedness.

Thus, the glen where murder had been committed; the pond in which the mother had immersed her new-born infant; the hoary ruin pregnant with horrid legends of the past; the rocks over which the inebriated drunkard fell; the four cross roads where the suicide was impaled; the dwelling of the miser, or of him who did unjustly to the orphan; and the willow-banks of the still-flowing river into which the love-lorn maiden had cast herself,--each had its spectre, and at the midnight hour the ghost of the murdered bared to the moon the mementos of its foul and most unnatural end; the spectre of the murderer, writhing in agony, rattled its gibbet-chains; the suffocating sobs of the drowning infant were borne on the fitful breeze; hideous spectres hovered o'er the deserted ruin; the ghost of the miser guarded its quondam treasures; the cruel guardian and the suicide shrieked forth the agonies of the damned; and the phantom of the deceived maiden gliding on the banks of her watery grave, mingled its plaintive wails with each sough of the midnight wind.

But, alas! this prolific source of terror and romance must be consigned to the delusions of the past; and the churchyard--erst pregnant with "thin-sheeted phantoms"--is now also shorn of its gloomy horrors, and regarded alone as the last quiet resting-place of man on earth.

Even when glimpses of the spirit-world are vouchsafed to those who still firmly believe in occasional visitations from its inhabitants, it would seem that the fashion of their appearance has become more in accordance with the quiet well-regulated ideas of the age. The major part of those terrible attributes of the nether world, that of old were delighted in, are no longer exhibited, and they are numbered with the things that have been. The form which appertained to Satan himself--the cloven foot, the forked tail, the hirsute frame, and the horned head--must also vanish before the march of civilisation; hence Mephistopheles, in the "Faust" of Goëthe, is represented as saying:--

"Refinement too, which smoothens all
O'er which it in the world has pass'd,
Has been extended in its call,
And reached the devil, too, at last.
That northern phantom found no more can be,
Horns, tail, and claws, we now no longer see,
As for the foot--I cannot spare it,
But were I openly to wear it,
It might do greater harm than good
To me among the multitude.
And so like many a youth beside,
Who bravely to the eye appears,
Yet something still contrives to hide,
I've worn false calves for many years!"

The phenomena upon which the belief of the occasional manifestation of disembodied spirits to man is founded, may be accounted for without having recourse to the doctrine of supernatural interposition.

Our senses and our reasoning powers are apt to err. We may deceive ourselves, and are liable to be deceived by an erroneous appreciation of the sensations which we receive from the objects surrounding us--_illusions_--but of the nature of which we may readily convince ourselves.

Illusions of the _sight_ may arise either from an error of judgment, or from a disordered state of the eye.

Of those illusions arising from an error of judgment, perhaps none bear directly upon our subject. Examples of this kind of illusion are the broken appearance of a stick partially immersed in water; the apparent movement of trees, houses, &c., past a train in motion, or the banks of a river past a steamboat.

Illusions arising from a disordered condition of the eye, prompting the imagination, are a prolific source of ghost-seeing.

In the obscurity of the evening, or during the darkness of the night (particularly on those nights which are cloudy, and the darkness seems to rest on the ground), the difficulty with which we distinguish any object to which the attention is directed, is liable to induce a disordered state of the eye, the effects of which are very startling.

"The imperfect view which we obtain of such objects forces us to fix the eye more steadily upon them; but the more exertion we make to ascertain what they are, the greater difficulties do we encounter to accomplish our object. The eye is actually thrown into a state of the most painful agitation, the object will swell and contract, and partly disappear, and it will again become visible when the eye has recovered from the delirium into which it has been thrown."[46]

This illusion is increased by a disturbed condition of the pupil of the eye.

The pupil is surrounded by a muscle called the _iris_, by the contraction and dilatation of which the size of the opening is increased or diminished, and a greater or less amount of light admitted to the eye. On a dark night, or during the twilight, the pupil is dilated to its utmost extent, so that every available ray of light may enter. In this condition the eye is not able to accommodate itself to near objects, and they become more indistinct; shadowy, and confused.

Under these circumstances, an object to which the attention is strongly attracted, may appear to assume strange variations in form,--now increasing, now diminishing in size, now approaching nearer, now going further off, or anon disappearing altogether; and a bush, a guide-post, a stoop, &c., will seem as though it assumed the most startling changes in size and appearance. Add the effects of the imagination, and we shall at once perceive a source of the various goblins, boggards, and other strange sights which have been supposed to haunt many of our byeways and deserted places.

To illustrate this form of illusion: a man with whom we were acquainted tells the following tale:--When young, he, one evening, had a quarrel with his mother about some trifling affair, and in defiance of her grief and supplications he left home late at night, intending to enter the army. It was very dark and stormy, and as he proceeded along a bye-path, suddenly a tall object arrested his attention; startled, he stood still, when, to his utter horror and astonishment, the object increased in size, and seemed as though about to pounce upon him; it then vanished, and anon appeared again. Terrified beyond measure, and conceiving that Satan had waylaid him for forsaking his mother, the poor man fell on his knees, and exclaimed: "O good Lord Devil, do not take me, and I'll go back to my mother, and be a good lad!" It is unnecessary to dwell upon the goggle eyes burning with flames which he imagined Satan to possess; suffice it that he remained before the supposed devil some time, overcome with terror, when a blink of the rising moon showed that he was laid at the foot of the stump of a tree. Heartily ashamed of his fear, he rose up, slunk back home, and made peace with his mother.[47]

This will suffice as an example of the most degraded form of ghost-life with which our highways and byeways have been peopled by the superstitious and illiterate,--illusions which have arisen from the effects of a disturbed condition of the visual organ on an excited imagination. Burns humorously describes this variety of ghost in his "Address to the Deil:"

"Ae dreary, windy, winter night,
The stars shot down wi' sklentin' light,
Wi' you, mysel, I gat a fright,
Ayont the lough:
Ye like a rash-bush stood in sight
Wi' waving sugh.

"The cudgel in my nieve did shake,
Each bristled hair stood like a stake,
When wi' an eldricht stour, quaick--quaick--
Amang the springs,
Awa ye squatter'd like a drake,
On whistling wings."

Another form of illusion is induced by objects seen indistinctly when the mind is disturbed and pre-occupied by some powerful and painful emotion.

"A lady was once passing through a wood, in the darkening twilight of a stormy evening, to visit a friend who was watching over a dying child. The clouds were thick, the rain beginning to fall; darkness was increasing; the wind was moaning mournfully through the trees. The lady's heart almost failed her as she saw that she had a mile to walk through the woods in the gathering gloom. But the reflection of the situation of her friend forbade her turning back. Excited and trembling, she called to her aid a nervous resolution, and pressed onward. She had not proceeded far, when she beheld in the path before her the movement of some very indistinct object. It appeared to keep a little distance in advance of her, and as she made efforts to get nearer to see what it was, it seemed proportionally to recede. The lady began to feel rather unpleasantly. There was some pale white object certainly discernable before her, and it appeared mysteriously to float along at a regular distance without any effort at motion. Notwithstanding the lady's good sense and unusual resolution, a cold chill began to come over her; she made every effort to resist her fears, and soon succeeded in drawing nearer the mysterious object, when she was appalled at beholding the features of her friend's child, cold in death, wrapt in its shroud. She gazed earnestly, and then it remained distinct and clear before her eyes. She considered it a monition that her friend's child was dead, and that she must hasten on to her aid; but there was the apparition directly in her path; she must pass it. Taking up a little stick, she forced herself along to the object, and behold, some little animal scampered away. It was this that her excited imagination had transformed into the corpse of an infant in its winding-sheet."[48]

Sir Walter Scott relates an interesting case of illusion occasioned by an accidental arrangement of some articles of clothing:--

"Not long after the death of a late illustrious poet, who had filled, while living, a great station in the eye of the public, a literary friend, to whom the deceased had been well known, was engaged, during the darkening twilight of an autumn evening, in perusing one of the publications which professed to detail the habits and opinions of the distinguished individual who was now no more. As the reader had enjoyed the intimacy of the deceased to a considerable degree, he was deeply interested in the publication, which contained some particulars relating to himself and other friends. A visitor was sitting in the apartment who was also engaged in reading. Their sitting-room opened into an entrance-hall rather fantastically fitted up with articles of armour, skins of wild animals, and the like. It was when laying down his book, and passing into this hall, through which the moon was beginning to shine, that the individual of whom I speak saw, right before him, and in a standing position, the exact representation of his departed friend, whose recollection had been so strongly brought to his imagination. He stopped for a single moment, so as to notice the wonderful accuracy with which fancy had impressed upon the bodily eye the peculiarities of dress and posture of the illustrious poet. Sensible, however, of the delusion, he felt no sentiment save that of wonder at the extraordinary accuracy of the resemblance, and stepped onwards towards the figure, which resolved itself, as he approached, into the various materials of which it was composed. These were merely a screen, occupied by great-coats, shawls, plaids, and such other articles as usually are found in a country entrance-hall. The spectator returned to the spot from which he had seen the illusion, and endeavoured, with all his power, to recall the image which had been so singularly vivid. But this was beyond his capacity; and the person who had witnessed the apparition, or, more properly, whose excited state had been the means of raising it, had only to return, and tell the young friend he had left, under what a striking hallucination he had for a moment laboured."[49]

The liability to illusion or hallucination in that transitional state of the mind when it reverts to surrounding objects, after it has been pre-occupied with some absorbing and intense thought, is very strikingly shown in the above case. It is very similar to that condition of the mind which obtains between sleeping and waking, when it is well known that our dreams are most vivid and brilliant.

Dr. Ferriar relates the following interesting case of illusion occasioned by a ray of moonlight acting upon the mind of an individual just awaking from a horrid dream.

"A gentleman was benighted while travelling alone in a remote part of the highlands of Scotland, and was compelled to ask shelter for the night at a small lonely hut. When he was conducted to his bedroom, the landlady observed with mysterious reluctance, that he would find the window very insecure. On examination, part of the wall appeared to have been broken down to enlarge the opening. After some inquiry, he was told, that a pedlar, who had lodged in the room a short time before, had committed suicide, and was found hanging behind the door in the morning.

"According to one of the superstitions of the country, it was deemed improper to remove the body through the door of the house; and to convey it through the window was impossible without removing part of the wall. Some hints were dropped that the room had been subsequently haunted by the poor man's spirit.

"My friend laid his arms, properly prepared against intrusion of any kind, by the bedside, and retired to rest, not without some degree of apprehension. He was visited in a dream by a frightful apparition, and awaking in agony, found himself sitting up in bed with a pistol grasped in his right hand. On casting a fearful glance round the room, he discovered, by the moonlight, a corpse dressed in a shroud, leaned against the wall close by the window. With much difficulty he summoned up resolution to approach the dismal object, the features of which, and the minutest parts of the funeral apparel, he perceived distinctly. He passed one hand over it, felt nothing, and staggered back to the bed. After a long interval, and much reasoning with himself, he renewed his investigation, and at length discovered that the object of his terrors was produced by the moonbeams forming a long bright image through the broken window, on which his fancy, impressed by his dream, had produced with mischievous accuracy, the lineaments of a body prepared for interment."

There are some illusions which arise from certain of the laws of action of impressions on the _retina_--that tissue of the eye in which the changes necessary to the excitation of the sensation of light by luminous rays are induced.

A sensation excited in the retina is not momentary, or during the continuance of the exciting cause alone, but it persists some seconds after that has been withdrawn. Thus if the end of a burning stick be rapidly moved in a circle before the eyes, it gives rise to the sensation of an uninterrupted circle of light; the sensation excited on each part of the retina enduring for a certain period after the luminous point has passed.

The following instance is an example of an illusion, having relation to our subject, from this cause.

A gentleman had been earnestly regarding a small and very beautiful painting of the Virgin and Child. On turning round from the contemplation of it, he was surprised at finding a woman of the full size, with an infant in her arms, standing before him. On examining the figures more closely he, however, found that the woman wanted the lower fourth of the body, and this at once led to a correct appreciation of the nature of the phantom. The painting he had been viewing was a three-parts length, and it was the persistence of the image upon the retina for a short period after he had turned from it, which had given rise to the phantom.

A species of divination is made use of in India which has its origin in an illusion of this nature, and of which the following is an interesting example:--

A lady who was about to undertake a long journey, was persuaded by a Moonshee to walk on the verandah and consult her fate.

"It was a clear calm night, the moon was full, and not the faintest speck in the sky disturbed her reign. The Ganges was like a flood of silver light, hastening on in charmed silence; while on the green smooth sward on which they walked a tall shrub here and there stood erect and motionless. The young lady, whose impressions were probably deepened by the mystical words of the Moonshee, felt a kind of awe stealing over her; she looked round upon the accustomed scene as if in some new and strange world; and when the old man motioned her to stop, as they reached an open space on the sward, she obeyed with an indescribable thrill.

"'Look there,' said he, pointing to her shadow, which fell tall and dark upon the grass. 'Do you see it?'

"'Yes,' said she faintly, yet beginning to be ashamed. 'How sharply defined are its edges! It looks like something you could touch!'

"'But look longer, look better, look steadfastly. Is it still definite?'

"'A kind of halo begins to gather round it: my eyes dazzle.'

"'Then raise them to the heavens; fix them on yonder blue sky. What do you see?'

"'I see it still; but it is as white as mist, and of a gigantic size.'

"'Has it a head?' asked the Moonshee in an anxious whisper.

"'Yes, it is complete in all its parts; but now it melts--floats--disappears.'

"'Thank God!' said the old man: 'your journey shall be prosperous, such is the will of Heaven.'"[50]

When a steady gaze is maintained upon an object until the retina is exhausted, which is shown by the imperfect vision, or "dazzling," and the eyes are then suddenly directed away from it to an uniformly coloured surface, an image of the object, from the persistence of the impression, as already stated, will still remain for a short period upon the retina; but another phenomenon is also observed, for the exhausted condition of the retina renders it incapable of responding, during its continuation, to the impression of the original colour of the object, and the spectrum appears of a different colour. To this spectral colour the term _complementary_ or _accidental_ is applied; and if the colour of the object be red, the complementary colour will be green; if yellow, deep purple; if black, white, &c., and _vice versâ_. Thus then the spectral apparition witnessed in the above relation receives a ready and intelligible explanation.

The sense of _hearing_ is also subject to illusions: for example, when a timid person mistakes the rustling of leaves in a forest for the voices of robbers; or the soughing of the wind among the trees, in some place of evil repute, for the moaning of a wandering and unhappy spirit.

The varied and undefined noises often produced by the wind when sweeping over an irregular surface, among rocks and trees, on the surface of water, in forests, or secluded and deep glens; and the mysterious sounds occasioned by the rushing of the water in the hollows and caverns of a rock-bound coast, have been fertile sources of illusion among the superstitious.

The ancient Romans listening to the inexplicable sounds which assailed the ear in solitary and wooded places, fabled that they were the voices of the wood deities, or as Lucretius beautifully expresses it:--

"The neighbouring swains believe, or fondly vaunt,
Satyrs and nymphs the rural regions haunt;
That fauns with wanton revel and delight
Disturb the sober silence of the night:
That music's blended notes are heard around,
The plaintive voice, and harp's according sound:
And well they know when Pan, the sylvan god,
(While o'er his brows the piny honours nod,)
With bending lip awakes the vocal reeds,
And the charmed ears of listening satyrs feeds.
With joy these tales they tell, or tales like these,
And fill the woods with fabled deities."[51]

As the winds swept over the wild heaths of the north, or roared amid the mountain passes, bearing upon their bosom the heavy mantling clouds which enwreathed the ghosts of the heroes of old, often in their varied tones did the ancient Celt conceive that he heard the voices of the dead; and he who was stricken with misery deemed that his forefathers called upon him to hasten to the land of shadows. "The ghosts of fathers," they say, "call away the souls of their race while they behold them lonely in the midst of woe." Or when an eddy of wind sweeping into the hall awoke a cadence of music as it played over the strings of the harps suspended there, the hearers shrunk as the notes thrilled through them, and fearfully whispered that the ghosts of the dead touched the strings, and asked whose death of all the mighty the ghostly music portended. "The harps of the bards, untouched, sound mournful over the hill."[52]

The supernatural framework of many legends depends upon illusions of the hearing of a similar character.

At Crosmere, near Ellesmere, in Shropshire, there is a tradition that a chapel once stood on the borders of the lake, and it was long believed that when the waters were ruffled by the wind the sound of the bells might be heard beneath the surface; and an old story records that, long ago, a church and village were entombed by an earthquake, near the spot where Raleigh, in Nottinghamshire, now stands; and that at Christmas, even now, the bells may be heard solemnly tolling deep in the bosom of the earth.

Among the Cornish miners a very singular superstition prevails, which is due to the sounds occurring in old and deserted workings, from the dropping of water and other causes. These noises are supposed to be produced by certain spirits, which are termed "_Knockers_," and, according to the author of "Yeast; a Problem," the miners hold that "they are _the ghosts of the old Jews that crucified our Lord, and were sent for slaves by the Roman Emperors to work the mines_; and we find their old smelting-houses, which we call _Jews' houses_, and their blocks, at the bottom of the great bogs, which we call _Jews' tin_; and there is a town among us, too, which we call _Market Jew_, but the old name was _Marazion_, that means the Bitterness of Zion, they tell me; and bitter work it was for them, no doubt, poor souls! We used to break into the old shafts and adits which they had made, and find old stags'-horn pickaxes that crumbled to pieces when we brought them to grass. And they say that, if a man will listen of a still night about those old shafts, he may hear the ghosts of them at working, knocking, and picking, as clear as if there was a man at work in the next level."[53]

But the most common cause of illusion from sound arises from the difficulty which all more or less experience, of tracing the direction of a sound, particularly if it be indistinct. The ascertainment of the direction of a sound, and the distance of the sonorous body, is an act of judgment, and it is the result of experience. The power may be cultivated to a great extent, and many savage tribes possess it in a very high degree; but among civilized nations, where the sounds requisite to be attended to are principally of a point-blank character, and where the necessity for the cultivation of that nicety of hearing which is required in forest life does not exist, the power of distinguishing the direction and distance of sounds is very imperfect.

The intensity of the sound, and the position of the ears, contribute to the formation of a correct judgment; but if the two ears have precisely the same relation to the point from which the sound issues, as when it occurs directly before or behind, it is impossible to distinguish by the sensation alone whether the sound arises in the front or the rear.

The most familiar and striking illustration of the difficulty experienced in determining the direction of sound, is _ventriloquism_. By a cultivation of the power of speaking without the aid of the lips, and by keeping the muscles of the face in a state of passiveness, the ventriloquist, on giving the mind of the listener a certain leading idea, will induce him to think that he hears voices issuing from the floor, from the ceiling, from within him, or from any position but the correct one; and by a modification of the intensity of the sound, it may be made to appear as if it arose at different distances, as when voices are heard in the distance, which gradually approach the listener, come close to him, pass by, and are again lost in the distance. Although perfectly aware of the deception, there are few who can correct the impressions received, and trace them to their legitimate source.

This uncertainty of distinguishing the direction and the nature of sounds has been a prolific source of belief in supernatural occurrences, and the majority, if not all, of those mysterious noises which are so common in old houses, and which it was customary, from inability to discover their origin, to attribute to spiritual agency, have been due to this cause. The yielding of wood-work, the scouring of vermin, the sighing of the wind in chinks and crannies, have been transformed by excited and superstitious imaginations into the sighing, or whispering, or knocking of wandering ghosts, and there is, perhaps, not a town or village in England which has not at one time or other had one or more houses reputed to be haunted by incorporeal visitants who have thus announced their presence.

Sir David Brewster relates an interesting example of illusion arising from this source. "A gentleman devoid of all superstitious feelings, and living in a house free from any gloomy associations, heard, night after night, in his bedroom, a singular noise, unlike any ordinary sound to which he was accustomed. He had slept in the same room for years without hearing it, and he attributed it at first to some change of circumstances in the roof or in the walls of the room; but after the strictest examination no cause could be found for it. It occurred only once in the night; it was heard almost every night with few interruptions. It was over in an instant, and it never took place till after the gentleman had gone to bed. It was always distinctly heard by his companion, to whose time of going to bed it had no relation. It depended on the gentleman alone, and it followed him into another apartment with another bed, on the opposite side of the house. Accustomed to such investigations, he made the most diligent but fruitless search into its cause. The consideration that the sound had a special reference to him alone, operated upon his imagination, and he did not scruple to acknowledge that the recurrence of the mysterious sound induced a superstitious feeling at the moment. Many months afterwards it was found that the sound arose from the partial opening of the door of a wardrobe which was within a few feet of the gentleman's head, and which had been taken into the other apartment. This wardrobe was almost always opened before he retired to bed, and the door being a little too tight, it gradually forced itself open with a sort of dull sound, resembling the note of a drum. As the door had only started half an inch out of its place, its change of position never attracted attention. The sound, indeed, seemed to come in a different direction, and from a greater distance.

"When sounds so mysterious in their origin are heard by persons predisposed to a belief in the marvellous, their influence over the mind must be very powerful. An inquiry into their origin, if made at all, will be made more in the hope of confirming than of removing the original impression, and the unfortunate victim of his own fears will also be the willing dupe of his own judgment."[54]

Not unfrequently the difficulty of distinguishing the direction of sound has been made the basis of imposition upon the credulous; and when it is considered how readily the judgment is led into error in this respect, even when aware of the deception practised, as in ventriloquism, the easy facility with which it is imposed upon when superstitious feelings are excited, and the wide-spread delusions which have thus arisen, cannot be wondered at.

The Cock-lane ghost is a familiar example of a deception of this nature: but this, and every other delusion of a similar character, sink into insignificance before a delusion of our own day and times--_Spirit-rapping_.

The idea of a communication of the spiritual world with man by the intervention of _raps_, is not new. A writer in a recent number of "Notes and Queries,"[55] gives the following example of an early instance of this kind in England.

"Rushton Hall, near Kettering, in Northamptonshire, was long the residence of the ancient and distinguished family of Treshams. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the mansion was occupied by Sir Thomas Tresham, who was a pedant and a fanatic; but who was an important character in his time by reason of his great wealth and powerful connections. There is a lodge at Rushton, situate about half-a-mile from the old hall, now in ruins, but covered all over within and without with emblems of the Trinity. This lodge is known to have been built by Sir Thomas Tresham; but his precise motive for selecting this mode of illustrating his favourite doctrine was unknown until it appeared from a letter written by himself about the year 1584, and discovered in a bundle of books and papers inclosed since 1605, in a wall of the old mansion, and brought to light about twenty years ago. The following relation of a "rapping" or "knocking" is extracted from this letter:--

"If it be demanded why I labour so much in the Trinity and Passion of Christ to depaint in this chamber, this is the principal instance thereof; that at my last being hither committed"--(referring to his commitments for recusancy, which had been frequent)--"and I usually having my servants here allowed me, to read nightly an hour to me after supper, it fortuned that Fulcis, my then servant, reading in the "Christian Resolution," in the treatise of "Proof that there is a God, &c.," there was upon a wainscot table at that instant three loud knocks (as if it had been with an iron hammer) given; to the great amazing of me and my two servants, Fulcis and Nilkton."

Another example of early "spirit-rapping" is the celebrated ghost of "_Old Jeffreys_," at the Epworth Parsonage, during the childhood of the Revds. John and Charles Wesley.

The conception of a familiar correspondence between the spirit-world and man by means of knocks and raps is, however, an idea of modern times, and for which we are indebted to America, although it would seem that in 1835 we were on the eve of making this unenviable discovery in our own country, for the invisible cause of certain noisy disturbances in a house occupied by a Captain Molesworth at Trinity, near Edinburgh, in that year, would, it is asserted, respond to a question by knocks, if it could be answered numerically; as, for example, "How many people are there in the room?" when it would answer by as many knocks. This so-called spirit seemed at times to be drumming a certain tune. The knocks in this case had some very intimate connection with a sick girl, a daughter of Captain Molesworth; for they accompanied her, and wherever she was there they prevailed most.