Chapter V: Part 5

The recent reports of Anglo-American Spiritualists are less crude, yet are similarly permeated by ghost-hypotheses. For example, a Mr. Rogers relates that he had put a crystal into the hands of a lady who knew nothing at all of its magical powers, yet who a short time afterwards very minutely described a scene in which a lecturer, evidently of English nationality, was addressing a foreign audience, while behind his chair the shade of a North-American Indian stood—the source of his inspiration. A few months later the lady was by chance introduced to the United States Consul at Trebizond whom she immediately recognised as the principal character of her vision, and who upon being questioned declared that at the time mentioned he had given an address at that place, and moreover, that according to the declaration of Spiritualist mediums he was controlled by the spirit of a North-American Indian.

In Germany the best known work is probably the "Visionen im Wasserglass," by Frau Adelma Von Vay, née Countess Wurmbrand. She reports in her little book some ninety experiments that were made in the years from 1869 to 1875. Frau Von Vay sees her pictures without difficulty, at times in their natural colors, at times in shades between white and black; often they are of only momentary duration, then again they persist for some time or gradually melt into confused and nebulous spots. The lady dictates to her husband the description of what is presented to her gaze; the "Spirit" furnishes commentaries and supplementary interpretations, and the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the prophecies and divinations is carefully noted down.

* * * * *

Before passing on from the history of this subject to the presentation of a number of systematic experiments, and to the development of the theory underlying them, I shall briefly consider the part that the magic mirror has played in poetry and fiction. For we often find here, especially in popular poetry, fairy tales, and traditions, an artistic anticipation of ideas that only the advanced knowledge of later centuries is able scientifically to verify. The illumined eye of genius prematurely seizes upon what in the distant future becomes the conscious property of all humanity. And this is true of the half-unconscious art of the individual poet. The imagination of the poet, borne aloft by the immediate sense of truth and the self-consciousness of typical humanity, casts flashes of illumination very frequently into the dark regions of our inner world. In the facts inherent in popular instinct it discovers intuitively a multitude of combinations, long before they possess for the average perception creditable possibility, or even possible reality. The minute analysis, however, of symbolic art belongs to the most difficult problems of comparative psychology.

To present at once from the multitude of examples a singularly striking one, "The History of the Youthful King Zein Alasnam and the Prince of Spirits" may be chosen. Zein Alasnam, who possesses eight statues of great value, is in quest of a ninth of marvellous beauty, which the Prince of Spirits promises him as soon as "thou shalt bring me a young maiden who shall be at least fifteen years of age and of perfect beauty; the maiden shall not be vain of her beauty and shall have never spoken an untruth." With the help of his magic mirror, Zein, after many vain attempts,—for the mirror was always murky when he looked into it in the presence of a girl,—finally found a maiden in whose presence a brilliant image shone forth from the mirror. By strategy Zein brought the noble girl, with whom in the mean time he had fallen passionately in love, to the Prince of Spirits—but it must be confessed that it was only at the earnest entreaty of his faithful servant, for he would have very much liked to possess the maiden himself. The Prince of Spirits thanked him and told him to return to his home where he would find the ninth statue that was promised him upon a golden pedestal in the centre of the others. Zein hastened to his palace and flew into his treasure-chamber. Upon the ninth pedestal there stood attired in silk of roseate hue, with modest blushing countenance, an immovable statue. Zein Alasnam, dazzled by the brilliancy of the other forms, stepped into the glittering circle to behold his treasure close at hand, when behold! the statue suddenly descended from its pedestal and fell into his arms. It was the same beautiful and virtuous maiden that he had conducted into the presence of the Prince of Spirits. She wept tears of joy and Zein Alasnam wept with her.

The factor here emphasised—namely, a mirror that only exhibits a clear surface to its possessor when a chaste maiden is in its presence—is not at all as fabulous as at first sight appears. It depends of course upon the person gazing whether the reflecting surface will appear murky or not; for it is a question here merely of subjective perception, and not of an objective blurring of the glass. In the case in which the girl made no impression upon the youth,—that is where the soul unconsciously passed an unfavorable judgment,—the picture will have been dimly perceived and will thus have expressed in a strangely roundabout way, that which lay slumbering in the depths of his heart. The mirror furnishes no other information than that which we put into it; but it communicates it to our every-day consciousness which knows little or nothing of the recondite processes of our inner life. The fabulous performances of other magic mirrors may be similarly explained if we discard the unnecessary adornment in which they are generally set forth. The "buch aller verbotenen kunst" (published in 1455), a mediæval collection of stories of this character, is supplied with marginal annotations of moral purport that possess some historical value. We shall therefore transcribe a passage illustrative of its character.

"Die maister und iregleichen die treiben die kunst pyromancia
auch in ainem schlechten spiegel und lassen kinder darein
sehen die sie dan auch vast beswern und in auch verporgne
wort einraunen und mainent vast vil darin zu erfragen. das
ist alles ein ungelaub und des boesen tewfels gespenst und
verfuerung. huet dich du christen, ich warn dich gar treulich.
auch treibt man die sach in ainem schönen glanzen pulierten
swert ... In der kunst pyromancia sind auch gar vil ander
ungelauben, und nemlich ainer der sol des gewiss sein, der ist
der allerschnoedest und boesest, wann so man ie vester gelaubt
an soelich zauberey so si ie mer is sünd. das stueck gat zu,
das die knaben kuenftige und alle ding suellen sehen in ainem
cristallen. das stueck treiben die valschen verzweifelten und
verzagten cristen, den dann lieber ist des tiuefels gespenst
und trugnuss, dan die warheit gottes in maniger hand weis.
ettlich haben gar ain lautern schoenen gepulierten cristallen
oder parillen, den lassen sie waihen und halten in gar rain
und lesen dazu weirrauch, mirren und desgleichen, und wann sie
die kunst treiben woellen, so warten si uf gar ainen schoen
tag oder haben ain rain gemach und darin gar vil geweichter
kerzen; die maister gan den gen bad und nemen dann das rain
chind mit in und beclaiden sich dan in raines weiss gewand,
und sitzen nider und sprechen in zauber bact, und prennen den
ir zauberopfer und lassen dan den knaben in den stain sehen
und raunen im in seine oren verporgen wort die suellen vast
hailig sein, warlich, die wort sind tewflisch."[27]

[27] "The Masters and their like also practice the art
Pyromancia in a wretched mirror, and make children look into
it, whom they then do conjure and also whisper secret words
in their ears, and fancy they get much information thereby.
But it is all a heresy, the work and allurement of the wicked
devil. Christian, have a care! I give thee honest warning.
They practise the thing, too, in a beautiful, shining,
polished sword.... In the art Pyromancia there is also much
other heresy, and especially there is one that is so, the
worst and wickedest of all: and the firmer one's belief in
it is, the greater is his sinfulness. Here, young boys are
said to behold future things and all things in a crystal.
Base, desperate, and faint-hearted Christians practise it, to
whom the shadow and the phantom of the devil are dearer than
the truth of God. Some take a clear and beautifully polished
crystal or beryl, which they consecrate and keep clean, and
treat with incense, myrrh, and the like. And when they propose
to practise their art, they wait for a clear day, or select
some clean chamber in which are many candles burning; the
masters then bathe, and take the pure child into the room with
them, and clothe themselves in pure white garments, and sit
down and speak in magic sentences, and then burn their magic
offering, and make the boy look into the stone, and whisper
in his ears secret words, which have, as they ween, some holy
import: verily, those words are of the Devil."

Exactly one hundred years after this, a similar _pot-pourri_ appeared, intermingled with references to modern affairs and Christian Ethics, entitled the "Neupolierte Geschicht-Kunst- und Sittenspiegel ausländischer Völker." Wherein we may read this:

"Es ist bekannt | dass | in manchen Staedten | bey uns |
unterweilen alte Weiber | auch wol zu zeiten Männer | den
Leuten | welchen Gott eine Straffe schuldig ist | in Spiegeln
und Krystallen weisen | was sie zu wissen begehren. Also hat
| fuer einigen Jahren | zu Elbingen in Preussen | einer sich
aufgehalten | welcher | aus einem solchen Wahrsager-Spiegel
| die Verborgenheiten verkuendiget | und den Fuerwitzigen
angedeutet hat. Mit dem Krystall-Gucken | wird zwar mancher
| von den alten Sagen-Sprecherinnen | getaeuscht und falsche
Mutmassungen | oder behende Augenblendungen | ihm fuer eine
Gewissheit verkauft: weil solche Vetteln vielmals | unter dem
Schein der Wahrsager-Kunst | ihren Betrug spielen | und weder
Gutes noch Boeses wissen. Nichts destoweniger stehen dennoch
auch viel solcher alten Sibyllen mit dem schwarzen Kaspar in
guter Vertraulichkeit und koennen | in den Spiegeln | oder
Krystallen | durch Huelfe und Vermittelung dieses boesen
Geistes | den Erfolg kuenfftiger Begebenheiten fuerbilden. Wie
dessen Herr Johannes Rist ein merkliches Exempel erzaehlet
welches er | in seiner Jugend | mit seinen leiblichen Augen
| gesehen | in einer grossen Stadt: darin er sich damals
| bei fuernehmen Leuten | aufgehalten | die einen feinen
wohlgearteten Sohn gehabt | welcher nachgehends zu hohen
Ehren-Aemtern gestiegen."[28]

[28] "It is known that in many of our towns old women,
possibly at times men, sojourn, who show to people to whom
God owes punishment that which they want to know, by means
of mirrors and crystals. Some years ago one such person was
staying in Elbingen, in Prussia, who predicted hidden truths
by the help of a divining mirror of this kind, and announced
them to his curious customers. Many indeed are deceived in
crystal-seeing by the old fortune-tellers that practice it,
and baseless guesses and cunning deceptions of the eye are
often sold them for certainties: for these hags frequently
practise their impostures only under the cover and semblance
of the art of divination, knowing neither good nor bad.
Nevertheless, many of these old Sibyls stand upon terms of
intimacy with Black Kaspar, and are able with the assistance
and intermediation of this evil spirit to foreshow in their
mirrors and crystals the issue and outcome of future events.
Such was the remarkable case that Herr Johannes Rist tells of,
which he saw in his youth with his own corporeal eyes; it was
in a great city wherein at the time he was staying with very
distinguished people who had a handsome and well-mannered son
who afterwards rose to high offices of honor."

Again, we have a "Denckwuerdige Geschichte von der Krystall-Guckery," which makes skilful use of all the fabulous elements of the magic mirror legends. It tells of a mirror that always reveals to its possessor the truth, and by means of which the future may be divined. A prominent feature of the nursery tales of to-day is discoverable in it—that if children look at night into a mirror an ugly, forbidding face will gaze out upon them. The book, however, presents few interesting details, and we may therefore pass it and others of the same period by in order to hasten on to the present.

And to whom would not the name of Hoffmann at once occur! He who delighted to employ, and weave in the magic web of his fiction, all that was marvellous and mysterious, will undoubtedly have dealt with the subject we now have in hand. In fact the magic mirror has three times figured in his works: once in "Der Goldene Topf," again in the "Lebensansichten des Kater Murr," and finally in the novel "Das öde Haus." A few passages may be taken from the last-mentioned novel as illustrations of the point we are considering.

A small forsaken cottage bears an evil name; it hides a secret from the world.

"This was what people said in the town, and I who tell this
story could get no rest with thinking of it; daily I walked by
the house with the curtained windows. Once, as I was passing,
I saw the curtain move and a beautifully-shaped hand adorned
with a brilliant diamond ring place a crystal carafe upon the
window-sill. The memory of this picture aroused in my mind a
visionary dream, and on the following day when I looked up to
the window at which the hand had appeared, the countenance
of the vision I had seen was regarding me with a look of
sorrowful entreaty. I seated myself upon a bench opposite,
the back of which was turned to the house, so that by leaning
over the arm I could gaze without disturbance at the fatal
window and the lovely maiden. Absorbed in contemplation, I
failed to observe an Italian pedlar who was offering me his
wares. But being seized by the arm I at last gave attention
to the importunities of the pedlar, who, with the words 'I
have other beautiful things here,' pulled out the lower drawer
of his box, and held at a short distance before me, at an
angle, a little round pocket-mirror that lay in the drawer
among a number of other trinkets. I beheld the desolate
house behind me, the window, and, marked in the distinctest
outlines, the lovely angelic form of my vision. I quickly
purchased the little glass, which now made it possible for
me, in easy posture and without attracting the attention of
the neighbors, to look towards the window of my hopes.... The
little mirror that so deceptively reflected the lovely form,
I had now devoted to domestic purposes. I was in the habit
of tying my cravat before it. And so it happened once, while
I was in the act of performing this important duty, that it
appeared tarnished to me. With a view to brightly polishing
it, I breathed upon it in the usual manner. My pulse ceased
its beating, my heart trembled with delight and dismay.
Delight and dismay! Yes, thus I must describe the emotion
that overpowered me, as, when my breath fell upon the mirror,
I beheld in a bluish mist the lovely face that had looked
upon me with that sorrowful, heart-penetrating glance!—You
laugh?—Denounce me, believe me an incurable dreamer! But say
and think what you will—it is enough—the fair one gazed upon
me from the mirror, and as soon as the breath disappeared her
face vanished in the darkness of the glass.

"But I will not weary you, I will not tell all that came
of this. Only this much will I say, that I again and again
renewed my experiments with the mirror, that I was often
successful in calling forth by my breath the picture I so
loved, but that oftentimes my most strenuous efforts were in
vain.... I lived only in the thought of her; all else was
dead to me; I neglected my friends and my studies.... Often
when that picture grew pale and wan, a physical indisposition
seized me, the figure came forth as never before with such
life-like reality and brilliancy that I almost fancied I
could seize it. And then it seemed to my horror that I myself
was the figure, veiled and encompassed by the mists of the
glass. A sharp pain in my breast and then total apathy
terminated this torturing condition, which invariably left
me exhausted, and shaken to my inmost core. In these moments
every attempt with the mirror miscarried; but when I had
become strengthened, and the picture appeared again from the
mirror in life-like form, I cannot indeed deny that a peculiar
physical charm otherwise foreign to me was united with it...."

We see what brilliantly colored creations tradition and fiction have woven about the magic mirror. It is now the duty of science to cull from these shining husks, by sober investigation, the kernels of truth; and that, it will be seen, can be done only by experiment. Unfortunately I myself am unable to report any successful experiments; for, despite repeated attempts, I have been unsuccessful in obtaining any images whatever from mirrors, or crystals, or reflecting surfaces of any kind. Similarly several members of the Berlin Society of Experimental Psychology have only had exclusively negative results to recount. But on the other hand, a member of the English Society for Psychical Research has been enabled to report a great number of pertinent observations. And although to my regret I am not permitted to publish the name of the lady[29] in question, yet every doubt as to the truth of her utterances is excluded, and the material she has furnished forms a valuable enrichment of psychological literature. I shall, accordingly, collect from the communications of this lady, who is a friend of Professor and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, several cases which appear to me especially adapted to throw light upon the nature of the strange phenomena we are examining.

[29] I afterwards received permission to publish her name: it
is Miss A. Goodrich of London.

The lady made more than seventy experiments of her own, of which—a fact of the greatest value for passing upon their exactness—she always made notes at once, or at the most never more than an hour afterwards. She employed various means for the production of the hallucinations. At first she used the colored balls that are hung upon Christmas trees, or the back of a gold watch; but it turned out that both these objects tried the eyes by their strong brilliancy and grotesquely distorted the visions that were evoked. A glass filled with water proved to be inconvenient to handle, especially in the dark; while mirrors also possessed many disturbing peculiarities. A magnifying glass set on a dark background proved to be very effective, especially by daylight; as did also a black-framed photograph placed upon the wall of the room opposite the light. The gaze and the attention, however, were best concentrated upon a well-polished rock-crystal. The method of procedure—since happily all the appurtenances of mysticism were discarded—was very simple. The lady draped the crystal in black, placed it where none of the surrounding objects could be reflected in it, and waited for whatever might happen.

What occurred? The simplest instance is perhaps No. 7, which we here introduce:

"I find in the Crystal a bit of dark wall, covered with white
jessamine, and I ask myself, 'Where have I walked to-day?'
I have no recollection of such a sight, not a common one
in the London streets, but to-morrow I will repeat my walk
of this morning, with a careful regard for creeper-covered
walls. To-morrow solves the mystery. I find the very spot,
and the sight brings with it the further recollection that
at the moment we passed this spot I was engaged in absorbing
conversation with my companion, and my voluntary attention was
preoccupied."

This is a very simple case. A visual image, recently yet unconsciously received, springs up from the subterranean strata of the soul into which it had sunk. No. 68 affords a similar instance:

"I had carelessly destroyed a letter without preserving the
address of my correspondent. I knew the county, and searching
in a map, recognised the name of the town, one unfamiliar
to me, but which I was sure I should know when I saw it. But
I had no clue to the name of the house or street, till at
last it struck me to test the value of the crystal as a means
of recalling forgotten knowledge. A very short inspection
supplied me with 'Hibbs House' in grey letters on a white
ground, and having nothing better to suggest from any other
source, I risked posting my letter to the address so strangely
supplied.

"A day or two brought me an answer, headed 'Hibbs House' in
grey letters on a white ground."

Tricks of the memory like these appear still more strange when they are due merely to an indirect excitation. It may happen that one is suddenly reminded of a friend who is long since dead, by the accidental sight of his favorite dish. No direct excitation is here presented, but the image of the friend remembered is indirectly revived through a certain concatenation of ideas. This we find in the eleventh experiment:

"One of my earliest experiences was of a picture, perplexing
and wholly unexpected—a quaint oak chair, an old hand, a worn
black coat-sleeve resting on the arm of the chair,—slowly
recognised as a recollection of a room in a country vicarage,
which I had not entered and but seldom recalled since I was a
child of ten. But whence came this vision, what association
has conjured up this picture? What have I done to-day?... At
length the clue is found. I have to-day been reading Dante,
first enjoyed with the help of our dear old vicar many a year
ago."

The process here carried on, which takes place for the most part outside of the sphere of consciousness, is therefore the following: The reading of Dante revives the image 'Vicar'; the image 'Vicar' produces the image of the room; the latter image is externalised.

But we can penetrate _consciously_ into these processes. There are any number of people who, with their eyes closed, can produce phantasy-pictures surprisingly realistic; and geniuses especially have command of rich powers in this direction. George Sand's biographer tells us, that sitting at the feet of her mother before the chimney fire, she would often watch the old green-colored fire-guard in order to form from the reflections of the flames figures and scenes. And this is the case of our English lady. Just as an imaginative child tells itself stories, so she, to while away the time, builds in the twilight hours groups of figures, and projects them into her crystals; and so strange is the unconscious "I" to the conscious "I," that oftentimes the miniature drama that is unfolded is the source of the greatest surprises to its own creator. This independence of our consciousness in two spheres, is exhibited with surprising distinctness where especial aids and expedients must be employed to decipher the visions. Thus:

"On March 20th, I happened to want the date of Ptolemy
Philadelphus, which I could not recall, though feeling sure
that I knew it, and that I associated it with some event of
importance. When looking in the Crystal some hours later, I
found a picture of an old man with long white hair and beard,
dressed like a Lyceum Shylock, and busy writing in a large
book with tarnished massive clasps. I wondered much who he
was, and what he could possibly be doing, and thought it
a good opportunity of carrying out a suggestion which had
been made to me, of examining objects in the Crystal with
a magnifying glass. The glass revealed to me that my old
gentleman was writing in Greek, though the lines faded away
as I looked, all but the characters he had last traced, the
Latin numerals LXX. Then it flashed into my mind, that he was
one of the Jewish Elders at work on the Septuagint, and that
its date, 277 B. C., would serve equally well for Ptolemy
Philadelphus! It may be worth while to add, though the fact
was not in my conscious memory at the moment, that I had once
learnt a chronology on a mnemonic system which substituted
letters for figures, and that the memoria technica for this
date was 'Now Jewish Elders indite a Greek copy.'" (No. 74.)

The employment of a magnifying glass, which by reason of external difficulties is seldom possible, is a convincing proof of the degree of independence of the two personalities within us. Anything more marvellous than the fact before us can hardly be imagined. We create something which is immediately wrested from our control and which leads a totally independent life; we produce something which becomes for our own selves a mute enigma, and which can only be aroused by artificial means out of its ghost-like silence.

"The rent that gapes throughout creation,
Goes also through the human heart."

And thus it may happen that our second "I" actually mystifies at times our first and principal "I."

Once a number of letters appeared to her in the crystal, each letter seen separately, of a bright red color. At first they seemed to be absolutely meaningless, but it was at length discovered that they composed words, spelt backwards, in the following fashion:—

d e t n a w a e n o e m o s o t n i o j a e t a v i r p e l c
r i c t s u m e b g n i l l i w o t e v i g s e v l e s m e h
t p u o t e h t t c e j b u s

and the message at length became intelligible as follows:—

"Wanted a someone to join a private circle, must be willing to give themselves up to the subject."

We now come to a third group of experiments in which an entirely new element enters into play. Whereas hitherto we have seen things revealed in the magic mirror which were demonstrably or presumably already present in the brain of the operator, or, where this was not the case, in any event possessed no external significance, we now hear of experiments in which unknown events are said to have been presented. I should take no notice whatever of this class of reports regarding clairvoyance in space and time, if our informant did not give the impression of being thoroughly conscientious and scientific. The English lady possesses, as I believe I have discerned from our correspondence, a highly critical mind, and is well acquainted with the common sources of error in this department of investigation, and her testimony is in my opinion more valuable than that of all the early authors together. It were indeed more acceptable if the results of recent investigations had been to show that all the phenomena of crystallomancy were referable to the hitherto misunderstood dominance of the soul of the individual gazing; but since a number of cases remain that will not fit into this explanation, we must as honest people openly acknowledge the fact. Accordingly, without attempting any detailed explanation, I shall select a few cases as illustrations, leaving it to the reader to discard them as "accidental" or to retain them as worthy of consideration:

"On Saturday, March 9th, I had written a somewhat impatient
note to a friend, accusing her of having, on her return
from a two months' absence on the Continent, spent ten days
in London without paying me a visit. I was not, therefore,
surprised, when on Sunday evening she appeared before me
in the Crystal, but could not understand why she should
hold up, with an air of deprecation, what appeared to be a
music portfolio. On Monday I received an answer, written the
previous day, pleading guilty to my charge, but urging, in
excuse, that she was attending the Royal Academy of Music,
and was engaged there during the greater part of every day.
This intelligence was to the last degree unexpected, for my
friend is a married woman, who has never studied music in any
but amateur style, and who, according to the standard of most
ladies of fashion, had "finished her education" some years
ago. I have since ascertained that she, in fact, carries a
portfolio corresponding with the sketch I made of that seen in
the vision." (No. 64.)

The simplest explanation of this case would be the assumption that our informant had at some time or other cursorily heard of her friend having again taken up music. The whole thing would then be a revived memory; and the agreement in appearance of the portfolio seen with the real portfolio, an accidental coincidence. But this presumption being excluded, psychologists who believe in the possibility of telepathic communication might propose a different explanation. In this way. The lady's friend, in writing her note of excuse, is vividly thinking of her work, which is to her to a certain extent represented by her portfolio, and conveys this picture to the receptive sub-consciousness of the other lady. There the image lies latent until it is translated into sensory life through the agency of the magic mirror—the very process with which we have at a previous place become acquainted, and will more exactly explain further on. The question, therefore, is reduced simply to the truth of the premise first assumed—namely, telepathic communication; and all that we can at present say, is, that it is considered as an actual fact, upon the basis of personal experience, by many prominent investigators, but is rejected by the majority as undemonstrated. For our part, we admit that an hypothesis of this kind would prove to be very useful, since reports similar to the last mentioned one, have recently been published in great numbers. We select as an illustration the following note by Mrs. L. M., from the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research:

"I was anxious to see a Mr. H., but was uncertain on what day
he would call. On the 19th [July, 1887] I was called out of
the office, and, before going out, I put on the door a card
having these words on it, 'Will return soon.' I was absent
about an hour. On my return I came upstairs, but did not ask
the elevator boy if any one had called; nor did he tell me
any one had done so. As I came within a short distance of the
door, I saw some characters written upon the card I had left,
and just below the printed words 'Will return soon,' I stooped
down and read, 'Mr. H. has been here, and will return.' As
I looked the words faded away. I entered the office, and in
a very short time Mr. H. came in. He had left no name or
message. He had impressed my face upon his mind very strongly,
with the intention of seeing if I would be in any way affected
by it, or conscious of his approach."

If the fact of accident, intensified by the strained expectation of Mrs. M., cannot be accepted as a satisfactory explanation, it is to be considered that the white surface of the card in this case acted in the same externalising manner as the crystal in the instance given just above. The remotely-operative excitation penetrated the soul unobserved, and was first translated into a conscious image at the moment when the glance at the card favored the formation of hallucinations.

Finally a number of other cases are to be mentioned, in which even these suppositions seem insufficient; and for the reason that the events seen were not to happen until some future time. But that which has not yet happened, and which is not to be foreseen in detail, can neither originate in the repositories of memory, nor from the telepathic influence exercised by another person. We should in that case be obliged to accept some hypothesis of clairvoyance in time—_granting of course that all sources of error are excluded_. The reader may judge for himself:

"In January last I saw in the Crystal the figure of a man
crouching at a small window, and looking into the room from
the outside. I could not see his features, which appeared
to be muffled, but the Crystal was particularly dark that
evening, and the picture being an unpleasant one, I did
not persevere. I concluded the vision to be a result of a
discussion in my presence of the many stories of burglary with
which the newspapers had lately abounded, and reflected with
a passing satisfaction, that the only windows in the house
divided into four panes as were those of the Crystal-picture,
were in the front attic and almost inaccessible. Three days
later a fire broke out in that very room, which had to be
entered from outside through the window, the face of the
fireman being covered with a wet cloth, as a protection from
the smoke which rendered access through the door impossible."
(No. 36.)

Is this a case of prevision? Granting that the agreement of the facts with the vision is not due to mere accident, the possibility yet remains of a falsification of memory; that is, the possibility that a vision originally _similar_ to the event afterwards observed, was subsequently taken to be the _same_ as that event. Such obscurations and falsifications of memory are very frequent. Indeed they get to be epidemic, the moment a second factor, that of _expectation_, is added. We need only have a foreboding that something will eventually happen, and we shall inevitably form certain indefinite notions of its particular character. If now the event actually happens, our obliging memory is at once at hand with the lie, '_Exactly_ as I knew before.' 'I told you so,' is the assertion. And it is therefore no accident that in the literature of clairvoyance, the arrival of letters of this or that tenor plays so great a part; for expectation has a broad and acceptable arena in this very connection. The extent to which the falsification of memory and intense expectation take part in the observation which we shall now cite, it would be hardly possible to determine accurately:

"On the evening of March 11th, being tired, I was about to go
early to my room, when it occurred to me to wait for the last
post, already late, that I might not be again disturbed by
having the letters brought to my room. I took up the Crystal
rather to pass the time than with much expectation of seeing
anything; for as a rule, when one is tired, the concentration
of attention necessary to Crystal-vision is somewhat difficult
to attain. However, I perceived a white object on a dark
ground, soon becoming more clearly defined as a letter in a
very large envelope torn at the edges, as if not sufficiently
strong to hold its contents. Another envelope, of ordinary
size, lying at the top, concealed the address, and the writing
on the smaller one was too much blurred to decipher. The
vision was momentary only, or I might have applied the test of
the magnifying glass, which is sometimes, though not always,
of use in such cases. I thought it possible that the vision
might be merely the result of expectation, but it seemed
at least worth while, after making a note of the fact,—my
invariable rule whenever possible,—to test its significance.
As a matter of fact, the letters were lying on a seat in the
hall, showing white against the dark polished wood—placed
there possibly by some one leaving the house who had met the
postman before he had time to ring. The letters were two,—the
lower one, which had burst the envelope, was the size of a
sheet of letter-paper not folded, and was for myself, the
upper one, the usual size of a note, and not for me, which may
have accounted for my inability to read the address." (No. 66.)

I repeat it—with accounts of this character, though in the highest degree acceptable, science cannot at present deal; and in proceeding now to attempt an explanation of the phenomena illustrated by the experiments of the English communication mentioned, I shall entirely leave out of consideration the cases that point to telepathic causes or clairvoyance in time and space.

We have already made the acquaintance of some few theories which have arisen historically. Formerly, and even at the present day in fact, certain objects and qualities of objects were made accountable for the occurrence of striking hallucinations. The great cycle of legends that adhere to the magic mirror, has thus arisen. Often a pentahedronal quartz-crystal, often the fusion of the seven ancient metals into polished surfaces was supposed to possess especial virtue. Gregory, of Edinburgh, asserted that the phenomena were most easily produced by looking into a double-convex plate of zinc into the centre of which a small polished copper disk had been set. We now know that in the importance attached to these and similar directions the salient point was missed and an incidental factor pushed into the foreground. But in any event it is worthy of remark, that through belief in notions of this kind the seer gained a greater confidence in the success of his experiments. Even incorrect theories prove to be useful. When any one finally came into the possession of a famous magic stone, his firm belief in its powers induced a disposition to visions that perhaps never before existed in his organism to the same degree.

A second hypothesis regards the phenomena as manifestations of the Devil or the work of spirits. Dr. Dee gives a very minute description of his regular spirit visitors. He tells of an old woman in a red petticoat, and of a pretty little girl with her hair rolled up in front and hanging down very long behind. This constant personification is very significant, since it indicates the approach of recognised forms of mental alienation; however, the "Daimon" of Socrates proves that it does not in every case necessarily lead to this. We are come, here, into a border-land, from which some roads lead into the dark regions of insanity and others up to the luminous heights of inspired genius: but in every case we are concerned with a region in _our own_ mind, and no natural propensity to externalisation must be allowed to deceive us with regard to it. The intrusion of foreign "spirits" into our psycho-physical organism, the assumption that incorporeal beings influence our nervous system so as to produce external effects, violently contradicts all human experience. If the spiritist doctrine could be mathematically proved it would be the most interesting solution imaginable of all these problems; and I must confess, the establishment of the existence of intelligent incorporeal beings would in my opinion eclipse all other events of our time. But the probability of this is at present _very_ small.

A third theory, of modern origin, seeks the explanation of the question in a species of magic power inherent in man, as yet unfathomed, which is manifested especially in ecstatic conditions. The vehicles of the _magic gaze_ are shining mirrors or reflecting surfaces, which forming a means of attraction for individuals of the proper constitution induce that peculiar state of alienation from every other subject, that concentration in the innermost self, which often rises to insensibility and unconsciousness, or even to cataleptic torpidity, wherein the consciousness of All-existence is liberated. Future events and distant occurrences are seen in pictures which appear to be reflected in the mirror or the fluid employed, but which in reality exist in the person gazing and are represented by projection outwards. Thus Perty.

Other philosophers speak of the "transcendental" capacities and powers of the human soul, or of the liberation of a metaphysical essentiality within us.

But these theories and suppositions are plainly the outcome of a premature simplification of our difficult problem. People are always too ready to thrust forward a new "power" or "force" to unify with dispatch and celerity uncomfortable phenomena of the present sort, and overlook the fact that every single phenomenon demands an exact investigation and explanation. Nothing is accomplished by calling phenomena "magical" or "transcendental." The work demanded is, to ascertain the connection and relation of the phenomena in question with the province of soul-life as a whole. To put an _x_ in the place of a _y_ contributes nothing to the solution of a problem. We cannot be too closely upon our guard against comprehensive syntheses of this character; for their splendid appearance dazzles woefully the eye of research.

Much nearer the truth is the position that hypnosis merely is concerned here. A well-known author, Louis Maury, who wrote in the middle part of this century, says:

"Among the principal methods of divination a great number aim
at producing a sort of vertigo by acting upon the eyes and
consequently upon the brain, in a manner something like that
in which shining bodies act in hypnotism."

Mrs. De Morgan speaks in a similar strain:

"Crystal-vision is a well attested fact, having its laws and
conditions like other phenomena in this world of known and
hidden causes, and a little careful observation may clear away
some of that obscurity which has kept it as the property of
witches and sorcerers. The Crystal ... seems to produce on the
eye of the seer an effect exactly like what would ensue under
the fingers of a powerful mesmeriser. The person who looks at
it often becomes sleepy. Sometimes the eyes close. At other
times tears flow."

Mrs. De Morgan's very description renders it doubtful whether we have to deal here with true, developed hypnotism. Other accounts are also calculated to shake this assumption. Cahagnet, for example, required only a moment of mental concentration for his eyes to become fixed; he lost all sight of the objects he had a moment before gazed upon, and those which he wished to call up appeared between him and the former. All spontaneous visions were fulfilled. When voluntarily evoked, but seven out of ten were true. When he wanted to produce the visions he fixed his eyes upon the first fit object, and he often saw hundreds and thousands of persons running hither and thither in one little shining point. Or he beheld a great city distinctly drawn in a mirror but one inch in diameter. This is not very easily reconciled with our conceptions of the character of hypnotism. Nor less so—to close our list of examples—the observations of an experimenter mentioned by Mrs. De Morgan, that the perceptions of crystal-vision are not interfered with by those of normal vision, but that the percipient could discontinue her observation at will, and returning would find the scene as she left it.

There is evidently involved here the condition of mind called "temporary" or "momentary" hypnosis, or what Eduard Von Hartmann more aptly calls "masked somnambulism." It is not fully developed hypnosis, but simply its incipient forms—hypnoid states of manifold variations. Now the question arises, Of what do these states consist? What are their essential characteristics? And how are they to be psychologically explained? For even our appeal to hypnotism simply puts a new empty name into the place of an old one. If we do not understand hypnosis, its production for the explanation of the magic mirror profits us very little. The task, accordingly, presents itself of referring, in connection with some psychological theory of hypnotism, the well-established facts at our disposal to one and the same cause.

The theory from which I shall proceed in attempting an explanation, has already been frequently touched upon in the course of this article; for certain observations indicated it so clearly that mention of it was not to be avoided. It is the doctrine of the double consciousness of the human soul.[30] Acts are done in the course even of our every-day life, which presuppose for their origin and execution all the faculties of the soul, yet nevertheless occur without the knowledge of the individual; they require a sort of consciousness and a separate memory beyond the _cognisance_ of the normal person. One of the most frequent cases in practical experience is where the thoughts of a person reading aloud wander and become occupied with an entirely different subject; and where despite this aberration the person in question reads correctly with the proper emphasis and expression, turns the leaves, and in short performs acts which without intelligent control are hardly conceivable. An English psychologist, Mr. Barkworth, has acquired such expertness in the practice of this, that during an animated debate he can rapidly and correctly add long columns of figures without having his attention diverted in the least. This points not only to an unconscious intelligence, but—which is of still greater consequence—to an unconscious memory. Mr. Barkworth must keep two series of figures in his mind in order to obtain from them a third; this latter sum he is again obliged to retain in order to add to it a newly acquired fourth; and so on. The latter chain of memories, let it be remarked, performs its office entirely independently of that upon which the recollection of the debate is constructed; and it may therefore be reasonably maintained that there exists beyond the cognisance of the individual, both consciousness and memory; and if the essential components of the ego are found in these two last-mentioned factors, then every person conceals within himself the germs of a second personality. I designate the two halves of consciousness that thus operate in greater or less independence of each other,—in a figurative sense of course,—as super-and sub-consciousness, and comprehend the whole as the doctrine of double consciousness or the double ego.

[30] Compare my treatise _Das Doppel-Ich_, the first number of
the "Publications of the Society of Experimental Psychology
of Berlin," Leipsic 1890, Ernst Günther. I must refer
here, moreover, to an acute criticism of my views by Adolf
Bentivegni, published as No. 4 of the above-named series, and
entitled _Die Hypnose und ihre civilrechtliche Bedeutung_,
Leipsic, 1890. The views set forth in the present article will
be found in the German magazine _Vom Fels zum Meer_.

The division very clearly appears in the opposition between waking and dreaming. Even when we very accurately remember a dream which we have just had,—which happens very seldom,—we feel the difference of the two states of consciousness with unmistakable distinctness. We have no power over the tricks that phantasy plays with us in our sleep, and in spite of the often present belief that it is all but a dream, yet every power fails us of penetrating into its independent activity. Moreover the images are generally of a very definite signification, since they are merely reproduced from the store-house of impressions that have sunk into the unfathomable depths of our soul. In this way many a dream reveals to us the true character of our Self; in this manner sub-basal dream-images exhibit the thoughts and emotions that principally occupy us in our innermost heart. Closer investigation teaches further, that in dreams, states of intoxication, in somnambulistic and epileptic attacks, not only does a consciousness different from the normal consciousness rule, but that also between separate successive periods memory-links of greater or lesser stability are wont to form. But this is most strikingly exhibited in the case of hypnosis. The hypnotic state is nothing more than an artificially produced ascendancy of the secondary or subordinate ego. All its peculiarities are explainable from this; for psychology endows the dream-consciousness prevailing in this state, with sensibility and suggestibility, the waking consciousness on the other hand with the inhibitory ideas that represent reality. It has established, moreover, that our fully conscious soul-life rests upon an automatically operating substratum of hallucinatory character, in which images, long since forgotten, have their abode. By virtue of these properties the subconsciousness becomes the source of bold and fantastic creations, while the superconsciousness is made the vehicle of our psychic life-work, laboriously sustaining and regulating itself in its relations with the outside world.

To this conception, which explains crystal-visions as a _form of the activity of the subconsciousness_, it will be variously objected, that such a simultaneous coexistence of two divisions of consciousness does not possess the same degree of probability as an alternation of states of consciousness. But how, upon this latter supposition, could the "Hibbs House" case be explained? In this instance, two psychical groups do not alternate, but one operates during the existence of the other.

Further, the propriety in general is questioned of speaking of half-conscious or unconscious ideas and mental processes. It is the opinion of the Göttingen philosopher G. E. Müller, that just as every excitation of the brain immediately occasioned by a sensory stimulus is not competent to produce a sensation, so also all reproduced nervous excitations are not necessarily accompanied by perceptual images. In the cases mentioned, and in many others, there is no reason why groups of true _psychical_ states should be admitted, which, in contradistinction to other psychical states, only lack consciousness; on the contrary, we have to deal with simply a series of nervous excitations, which, as distinguished from other excitations, are not accompanied by corresponding states of our consciousness.

This conception of soul-life, which has been of late very favorably received, Hugo Münsterberg has formulated thus—that the psychical phenomenon is to a certain extent the subjective internal aspect of a thus and thus constituted objective physical phenomenon. We are to bear in mind that the succession of the physical processes is nowhere interrupted, and that in addition certain of these physical processes, those namely which are carried on with a certain intensity in particular apparatuses of the brain, possess a psychical internal aspect; so that this excitation of the nervous cells is, without losing thereby anything in physical effect, the condition of the appearance of certain sensations in consciousness.

But by the side of the physiological theory legitimately exist as possibilities a psychological one and a psycho-physical one. It is the doctrine of the latter theories that not only are physical vestiges left behind in the cortex of the brain after every perception, but also psychical dispositions to the formation of ideas and images; and that it is possible for images of all kinds to continue to exist without distinctly attaining to consciousness. These theories distinguish between degrees of luminosity in our percepts and images, the three most important degrees of which I have designated as consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness. There exists a gradation of degrees of consciousness, and the fully-conscious course of mental representation is everywhere conditioned by its connection with the obscured spheres beyond. Our attention surveys but a small area, on the boundary lines of which the altitudes of consciousness decrease, and finally approach the zero point. I say _approach_, for they never reach it. Our experiments with the magic mirror in fact show us how the oldest impressions, and impressions of ridiculous insignificance, after long long years awake as it were from the slumber of the fabled Sleeping Beauty. If our millions of perceptions were to live on in _consciousness_ we should no longer have a past, but live in a continuous celestial present; but were the operation of consciousness so limited that it destroyed great numbers of images, the very facts upon which the belief in supernatural powers rests, would lose their only rational explanation. One result of our study of crystal-visions is assuredly this, that we shall have to erase the word "forgotten" with all its derivatives from the dictionary, and at the most employ the phrase "not remembered." With more ardent yearning than ever before will we long for a river of Lethe, and join with our whole hearts in the cry of Themistocles, "O that some one might teach me the art of forgetting!"

Along with the inner process the outward form of the hallucination still requires a brief explanation. The circumstance, namely, which lends magic-mirror phenomena their salient feature, is the sensory reproduction of the images that have sprung up from the subconsciousness. The subterranean ideas produced do not reach the surface as thoughts, but as pseudo-perceptions. To refer the latter to the place to which they belong, I shall first remind the reader of the well-known after-images which arise when an excitation produced in the sensory organ and in the sensory nerves does not immediately disappear with the cessation of the excitatory action. By gazing at the sun we can at once obtain this effect. But despite the fact that the last-mentioned class of images possesses the full distinctness of real sensations as distinguished from mere memory and imagination images, they still bear no relation to our subject on account of their union with _recently_ occurring sensory impressions. Still less do the repetition-sensations in the dark field of vision—as of revolving wheels—belong here; or illusions. There remain accordingly only _hallucinations_, which are withdrawn from all conscious control, and which possess the exact character of sensory perceptions externally awakened, without any object or objective stimulation actually being present in the outer world to correspond to them.