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_ Footnotes {0a} Fortnightly Review, February 1866, and in a lecture, 1895. {0b} This diary was edited for private circulation, by a son of Mr. Proctor's, who remembers the disturbances. {0c} See essays here on Classical and Savage Spiritualism. {0d} This was merely a cheerful obiter dictum by the learned President. {4} Not the house agent. {9} Porphyry, Epistola xxi. Iamblichus, De Myst., iii. 2. {11} The Port Glasgow story is in Report of the Dialectical Society, p. 200. The flooring was torn up; walls, ceilings, cellars, were examined by the police, and attempts were made to imitate the noises, without success. In this case, as at Rerrick in the end of the seventeenth century, and elsewhere, 'the appearance of a hand moving up and down' was seen by the family, 'but we could not catch it: it quietly vanished, and we only felt cold air'. The house was occupied by a gardener, Hugh McCardle. Names of witnesses, a sergeant of police, and others, are appended. {12} Report of Dialectical Society, p. 86. {17a} For ourselves, we have never seen or heard a table give any responses whatever, any more than we have seen the ghosts, heard the raps, or viewed the flights of men in the air which we chronicle in a later portion of this work. {17b} Report on Spiritualism, Longmans, London, 1871. {18} Report, p. 229. {21} Mr. Wallace may be credited with scoring a point in argument. Dr. Edmunds had maintained that no amount of evidence would make him believe in certain obvious absurdities, say the lions in Trafalgar Square drinking out of the fountains. Mr. Wallace replied: 'The asserted fact is either possible or not possible. If possible, such evidence as we have been considering would prove it; if not possible, such evidence could not exist.' No such evidence exists for the lions; for the phenomena of so-called spiritualism, we have consentient testimony in every land, period and stage of culture. That certainly makes a difference, whatever the weight and value of the difference may be. {26a} This illustration is not Mr. Lecky's. {26b} We have here thrown together a crowd of odd experiences. The savages' examples are dealt with in the next essay; the Catholic marvels in the essay on 'Comparative Psychical Research'. For Pascal, consult L'Amulette de Pascal, by M. Lelut; for Iamblichus, see essay on 'Ancient Spiritualism'. As to Welsh, the evidence for the light in which he shone is printed in Dr. Hill Burton's Scot Abroad (i. 289), from a Wodrow MS. in Glasgow University. Mr. Welsh was minister of Ayr. He was meditating in his garden late at night. One of his friends 'chanced to open a window towards the place where he walked, and saw clearly a strange light surround him, and heard him speak strange words about his spiritual joy'. Hill Burton thinks that this verges on the Popish superstition. The truth is that eminent ministers shared the privileges of Mediums and of some saints. Examples of miraculous cures by ministers, of clairvoyance on their part, of spirit-raps attendant on them, and of prophecy, are current on Presbyterian hagiology. No ministers, to our knowledge, were 'levitated,' but some nearly flew out of their pulpits. Patrick Walker, in his Biographia Presbyteriana, vol. ii. p. 21, mentions a supernatural light which floated round The Sweet Singers, Meikle John Gibb and his friends, before they burned a bible. Mr. Gibb afterwards excelled as a pow-wow, or Medicine Man, among the Red Indians. {30} Teutonic Mythology, English translation, vol. ii. p. 514. He cites Pertz, i. 372. {31} A very early turning table, of 1170, is quoted from Giraldus Cambrensis by Dean Stanley in his Canterbury Memorials, p. 103. The table threw off the weapons of Becket's murderers. This was at South Malling. See the original in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, ii. 425. {35} See Mr. Tylor's Primitive Culture, chap, xi., for the best statement of the theory. {38} Petitot, Traditions Indiennes du Canada Nord-Ouest, p. 434. {40} Very possibly the whirring roar of the turndun, or [Greek], in Greek, Zuni, Yoruba, Australian, Maori and South African mysteries is connected with this belief in a whirring sound caused by spirits. See Custom and Myth. {41a} Proc. S. P. R., xix. 180. {41b} Brough Smyth, i. 475. {42} Auckland, 1863, ch. x. {45a} [Greek].--Iamblichus. {45b} Kohl, Kitchi-Gami, p. 278. {48} Hind's Explorations in Labrador, ii. 102. {50a} Rowley, Universities' Mission to Central Africa, p. 217: cited by Mr. Tylor. {50b} Quoted in La Table Parlante, a French serial, No. I, p. 6. {51} Colonel A. B. Ellis, in his work on the Yorubas (1894), reports singular motions of a large wooden cylinder. It is used in ordeals. {52} The Natural and Morall History of the East and West Indies, p. 566, London, 1604. {53} February 9, 1872. Quoted by Mr. Tylor, in Primitive Culture, ii. 39, 1873. {57} Revue des Deux Mondes, 1856, tome i. p. 853. {60} Hallucinations, English translation, p. 182, London, 1859. {62} Laws, xi. {63} Records of the Past, iv. 134-136. {65a} The references are to Parthey's edition, Berlin, 1857. {65b} [Greek], 4, 3. {65c} All are, for Porphyry, 'phantasmogenetic agencies'. {66a} Jean Brehal, par P.P. Belon et Balme, Paris, s.a., p. 105. {66b} Proces de Condemnation, i. 75. {67a} Appended to Beaumont's work on Spirits, 1705. {67b} See Mr. Lillie's Modern Mystics, and, better, Mr. Myers, in Proceedings S. P. R., Jan., 1894. {68a} Origen, or whoever wrote the Philosophoumena, gives a recipe for producing a luminous figure on a wall. For moving lights, he suggests attaching lighted tow to a bird, and letting it loose. Maury translates the passages in La Magie, pp. 58-59. Spiritualists, of course, will allege that the world-wide theory of spectral lights is based on fact, and that the hallucinations are not begotten by subjective conditions, but by a genuine 'phantasmogenetic agency'. Two men of science, Baron Schrenk- Notzing, and Dr. Gibotteau, vouch for illusions of light accompanying attempts by living agents to transfer a hallucinatory vision of themselves to persons at a distance (Journal S. P. R., iii. 307; Proceedings, viii. 467). It will be asserted by spiritualists that disembodied agencies produce the same effect in a higher degree. {68b} [Greek]. {69} [Greek]. {70a} Damascius, ap. Photium. {70b} [Greek]. {71} Life of Hugh Macleod (Noble, Inverness). As an example of the growth of myth, see the version of these facts in Fraser's Magazine for 1856. Even in a sermon preached immediately after the event, it was said that the dreamer found the pack by revelation of his dream! {72} iii. 2. [Greek]. {73} Greek Papyri in the British Museum; edited by F. G. Kenyon, M.A., London, 1893. {74} See notice in Classical Review, February, 1894. {75a} See oracles in Eusebius, Praep. Evang., v. 9. The medium was tied up in some way, he had to be unloosed and raised from the ground. The inspiring agency, in a hurry to be gone, gave directions for the unbinding. [Greek]. The binding of the Highland seer in a bull's hide is described by Scott in the Lady of the Lake. A modern Highland seer has ensconced himself in a boiler! The purpose is to concentrate the 'force'. {75b} Praep. Evang., v. 8. {75c} Ibid., v. 15, 3. {78a} Dr. Hodgson, in Proceedings S. P. R., Jan., 1894, makes Mr. Kellar's evidence as to Indian 'levitation' seem far from convincing! As a professional conjurer, and exposer of spiritualistic imposture, Mr. Kellar has made statements about his own experiences which are not easily to be harmonised. {78b} Proceedings S. P. R. Jan., 1894. {86} The Miraculous Conformist. A letter to the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. Oxford: University Press, 1666. {88a} Fourth edition, London, 1726. {88b} In Kirk's Secret Commonwealth, 1691. London: Nutt, 1893. {90a} In the Salem witch mania, a similar case of levitation was reported by the Rev. Cotton Mather. He produced a cloud of witnesses, who could not hold the woman down. She would fly up. Mr. Mather sent the signed depositions to his opponent, Mr. Calef. But Calef would not believe, for, said he, 'the age of miracles is past'. Which was just the question at issue! See Beaumont's Treatise of Spirits, p. 148, London, 1705. {90b} Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, p. 7. London: Burns, 1875. {90c} Popular Tales, iv. 340. {94} The anecdote is published by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, in a letter of Lauderdale's, affixed to Sharpe's edition of Law's Memorialls. {95} See Ghosts before the Law. {96} Proceedings S. P. R., xv. 33. {100a} See many examples in Li Fiorette de Misser Santo Francesco. {100b} Ch. cxviii. {101} D. D. Home; his Life and Mission, p. 307, London, 1888. {102} Sept. 18, vol. v., 1866. {107a} See Colonel Yule's Marco Polo. {107b} Quarterly Journal of Science, July, 1871. {108a} Proceedings S. P. R., xix. 146. {108b} North American Review, 1893. {108c} Proceedings S. P. R., x. 45-100; xix. 147. {109a} Incidents in my Life, i. 170. {109b} A Paris, chez la Veuve du Carroy, 1621. {110a} Folklore of China, 1876, p. 79. {110b} Op. cit., p. 74. {110c} Paris. Quarto. Black letter. 1528. The original is extremely rare. We quote from a copy once in the Tellier collection, reprinted in Recueil de Dissertations Anciennes et Nouvelles sur les Apparitions. Leloup: Avignon, 1751, vol. ii. pp. 1-87. {112} Proceedings S. P. R., xix. 186. 'C.' is a Miss Davis, daughter of a gentleman occupying 'a responsible position as a telegraphist'. The date was 1888. {114a} Satan's Invisible World Discovered. Edinburgh: Reid, 1685. Pp. 67-69. {114b} Manuscript 7170, A, de la Bibliotheque du Roi. Dissertations, ut supra, vol. i. pp. 95-129. {115} Dufresnoy, op. cit., i. 95-129. {117} Compare Bastian, Mensch., ii. 393, cited by Mr. Tylor. {118} De Materia Daemon. Isagoge, p. 539. Ap. Corn. Agripp., De Occult. Philosoph. Lyons, 1600. {122} Aubrey gives a variant in his Miscellanies, on the authority of the Vicar of Barnstaple. He calls Fey 'Fry'. {123a} The Devonshire case, 'Story of a Something,' in Miss O'Neill's Devonshire Idylls, is attested by a surviving witness. {123b} Trials of Isobell Young, 1629, and of Jonet Thomson, Feb. 7, 1643. Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p. 593. {124} Witness Rev. E. T. Vaughan, King's Langley. 1884. {125a} Segraisiana, p. 213. {125b} Crookes's Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena usually called Spiritual. 86. London: Burns (second edition). {126a} Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 75. {126b} A New Confutation of Sadducism, p. 5, writ by Mr. Alexander Telfair, London, 1696. {129} Primitive Culture, vol. i. 368; ii. 304. {130} The reader may also consult Notes on the Spirit Basis of Belief and Custom, a rough draft printed for the Indian Government. While rich in curious facts, the draft contains very little about 'manifestations,' except in 'possession'. {131a} Gregory, Dialogues, iv. 39. {131b} De Rerum Varietate, xvi. cap. xciii. {132} De Praestigiis Daemon. {133} Si fallere possunt, ut quis videre se credat, cum videat revera extra se nihil: non poterunt fallere, ut credat quis se audire sonos, quos revera non audit? (p. 81). {135} Proceedings S. P. R., xv. 42. {137} There is one possible exception to this rule. {139} S. P. R., viii. 81. {140a} Geschichte des Neueren Occultismus, p. 451. {140b} Opera, 1605. {142} S. P. R., vi. 149. {146} Proc. S. P. R., viii. 133. {147} Proc. S. P. R., Nov., 1889, p. 269. {149} This is rather overstated; there were knocks, and raps, and footsteps (Proc. S. P. R., Nov., 1889, p. 310). {150} Proc. S. P. R., April, 1885, p. 144. {151} To be frank, in a haunted house the writer did once see an appearance, which was certainly either the ghost or one of the maids; 'the Deil or else an outler quey,' as Burns says. {153} London, 1881, pp. 184-185. {156} S. P. R., xv. 64. {158a} Proceedings S. P. R., xvi. 332. {158b} Sights and Shadows, p. 60. {165} British Chronicle, January 18, 1762. {166} Annual Register. {167} Praep. Evang., v. ix. 4. {170a} Rudolfi Fuldensis, Annal., 858, in Pertz, i. 372. See Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Engl. transl., p. 514. {170b} Pseudo-Clemens, Homil., ii. 32, 638. In Mr. Myers's Classical Essays, p. 66. {178} Avignon, 1751. {183} Compare the case of John Beaumont, F.R.S., in his Treatise of Spirits (1705). {186} Proceedings S. P. R., viii. 151-189. {189} Mrs. Ricketts was a sister of Lord St. Vincent, who tried, in vain, to discover the cause of the disturbances. Scott says (Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 360): 'Who has heard or seen an authentic account from Lord St. Vincent?' There is a full account in the Journal of the S. P. R. It appeared much too late for Sir Walter Scott also complains of lack of details for the Wynyard story. They are now accessible. People were, in his time, afraid to make their experiences public. {190} The story is told by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, in his Introduction to Law's Memorialls, p. xci. Sharpe cites no source of the tradition. {191} We are not discussing Dreams, which are many, but waking hallucinations, which are, relatively rare, and are remembered, unlike Dreams, whether they are coincidental or not. {192} Gurney, op. cit., p. 187. {193a} The writer knows a case in which a gentleman, who had gone to bed about eleven p.m., in Scotland, was roused by hearing his own name loudly called. He searched his room in vain. His brother died suddenly, at the hour when he heard the voice, in Canada. But the difference of time proves that the voice was heard several hours before the death. Here, then, is a chance coincidence, which looked very like a case of Telepathy. Another will be found in Mr. Dale Owen's Debatable Land, p. 364. A gentleman died 'after breakfast' in Rhenish Prussia, and appeared, before noon, in New York. Thus he appeared hours after he died. {193b} Polack, New Zealand, i. 269. {194a} Proceedings S. P. R., xv. 10. {194b} The writer has known a case in which a collector of these statistics, disdained non-coincidental hallucinations as 'of no use' {195} Proceedings S. P. R., xv. 7. {196} Animal Magnetism, pp. 61-64, 1887. {199} The Psychical Society has published the writer's encounter with Professor Conington, at Oxford, in 1869, when the professor was lying within one or two days of his death at Boston, a circumstance wholly unknown to the percipient. But no jury would accept this as anything but a case of mistaken identity, natural in a short-sighted man's vague experiences. Mr. Conington was not a man easily to be mistaken for another, nor were many men likely to be mistaken for Mr. Conington. Yet this is what must have occurred. There was no conceivable reason why the professor should 'telepathically' communicate with the percipient, who had never exchanged a word with him, except in an examination. {205} Proceedings of Society for Psychical Research, viii. 111. {206} Proceedings of Society for Psychical Research, xiv. 442. {207a} Modern Spirit Manifestations. By Adin Ballou. Liverpool, 1853. {207b} Proceedings of Society for Psychical Research, xiv. 469. {209} Edinburgh, 1827, vol. i. p. xxxii. {214} In the author's case the hypnagogic phantasms seem to be created out of the floating spots of light which remain when the eyes are shut. Some crystal-gazers find that similar points de repere in the glass, are the starting-points of pictures in the crystal. Others cannot trace any such connection. {215} Compare Blackwood, August, 1831, in Noctes Ambrosianae. {216a} Paus., ii. 24, I. {216b} Bouche Leclercq, i. 339. {223} The accomplished scryer can see as well in a crystal ringstone, or in a glass of water, as in a big crystal ball. The latter may really be dangerous, if left on a cloth in the sun it may set the cloth on fire. {224} Animal Magnetism, second edition, p. 135. {228} Thus an educated gentleman, a Highlander, tells the author that he once saw a light of this kind 'not a meteor,' passing in air along a road where a funeral went soon afterwards. His companions could see nothing, but one of them said: 'It will be a death- candle'. It seems to have been hallucinatory, otherwise all would have shared the experience. {231a} Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p. 481, Edinburgh, 1834. {231b} Op. cit., p. 473. {232a} Op. cit., p. 470 {232b} It is, perhaps, needless to add that the unhappy patients were executed. {232c} Miscellanies, 1857, p. 184. {233a} Wodrow, i. 44. {233b} Aulus Gellius, xv. 18. Dio Cassius, lib. lxvii. Crespet, De la Hayne de Diable, cited by Dalyell. {234} Miscellanies, 177. {235} A copy presented by Scott to Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck is in the author's possession; it bears Scott's autograph. {237} Information from Mr. Mackay, Craigmonie. {238} 2 Kings, v. 26. {244} i. 259. Longmans, London, 1811. {245} Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 143. {246} This belief is not confined to the Highlands. Mr. Podmore quotes Ghost 636 in the Psychical Society's collections: 'The narrator's mother is said to have seen the figure of a man'. The father saw nothing till his wife laid her hand on his shoulder, when he exclaimed, 'I see him now' (S. P. R., Nov., 1889, p. 247). {250} 'Spectral evidence' was common in witch trials. Wierus (b. 1515) mentions a woman who confessed that she had been at a witch's covin, or 'sabbath,' when her body was in bed with her husband. If there was any confirmatory testimony, if any one chose to say that he saw her at the 'sabbath,' that was 'spectral evidence'. This kind of testimony made it vain for a witch to take Mr. Weller's advice, and plead 'a halibi,' but even Cotton Mather admits that 'spectral evidence' is inconclusive. {253} Papon. Arrets., xx. 5, 9. Charondas, Lib. viii. Resp. 77. Covarruvias, iv. 6. Mornac, s. v., Habitations, 27 ff., Locat. and Conduct. Other doctors do not deny hauntings, but allege that a brave man should disregard them, and that they do not fulfil he legal condition, Metus cadens in constantem virim. These doctors may never have seen a ghost, or may have been unusually courageous. They held that a man might get accustomed to the annoyances of bogles, s'apprivoiser avec cette frayeur, like the Procter family at Willington. {259} Miscellanies, p. 94, London, 1857. {262} Hibbert, Philosophy of Apparitions, second edition, p. 224. Hibbert finds Graime guilty, but only because he knew where the body lay. {263} Notices Relative to the Bannatyne Club, 1836, p. 191. Remarkable Trial in Maryland. {267} Paris, 1708. Reprinted by Lenglet Dufresnoy, in his Dissertations sur les Apparitions. Avignon, 1751, vol. iii. p. 38. {269} Second edition, Buon, Paris, 1605. First edition, Angers, 1586. {273} Dr. Lee, in Sights and Sounds (p. 43), quotes an Irish lawsuit in 1890. The tenants were anxious not to pay rent, but were non-suited. No reference to authorities is given. There was also a case at Dublin in 1885. Waldron's house was disturbed, 'stones were thrown at the windows and doors,' and Waldron accused his neighbour, Kiernan, of these assaults. He lost his case (Evening Standard, February 23, 1885, is cited). {275} p. 195, London, 1860. {276} The account followed here is that of the narrator in La Table Parlante, p. 130, who differs in some points from the Marquis de Mirville in his Fragment d'un Ouvrage Inedit, Paris, 1852. {277} For bewitching by touch see Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World, p. 150. 'Library of Old Authors,' London, 1862. {279a} Cotton Mather, op. cit., p. 131. {279b} Table Parlante, p. 151. A somewhat different version is given p. 145. The narrator seems to say that Cheval himself deposed to having witnessed this experiment. {283a} Gazette des Tribunaux, February 2, 1846, quoted in Table Parlante, p. 306. {283b} Table Parlante, p. 174. {300} Hibbert, Apparitions, p. 211. {303} Mather's own account of the lost sermon (p. 298) is in his Life, by Mr. Barrett Wendell, p. 118. It is by no means so romantic as Wodrow's version. {307} An account of the method by which the Miss Foxes rapped is given, by a cousin of theirs, in Dr. Carpenter's Mesmerism (p. 150). {312} See Dr. Carpenter's brief and lucid statement about 'Latent Thought' and 'Unconscious Cerebration,' in the Quarterly Review, vol. cxxxi. pp. 316-319. {317} A learned priest has kindly looked for the alleged spiritus percutiens in dedicatory and other ecclesiastical formulae. He only finds it in benedictions of bridal chambers, and thinks it refers to the slaying spirit in the Book of Tobit. {319a} S. P. R., x. 81. {319b} London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1877. {320} Quoted by Dr. Carpenter, op. cit., p. vii. {324} Tom. ii. pp. 312, 435, edition of 1768. {326} In the Quarterly Review, vol. cxxxi. pp. 336-337, Dr. Carpenter criticises an account given by Lord Crawford of this performance. He asks for the evidence of the other witnesses. This was supplied. He detects a colloquial slovenliness in a phrase. This was cleared up. He complains that the light was moonlight. 'The moon was shining full into the room.' A minute philosopher has consulted the almanack and denies that there was any moon! {327} Lord Crawford's evidence is in the Report of the Dialectical Society, p. 214 {328} Quarterly Review, vol. cxxxi. p. 303. {329} Observe the caution of the Mosstrooper, even in that agitating moment! How good it is, and how wonderfully Sir Walter forecasts a seance. {341a} Lucretius, iv. 26-75, Munro's translation. {341b} Def. Orac., 19. {341c} Ibid., iv. 193. {352} Porphyry, Vita Plotini. {353} Primitive Culture, i. 404. {355} In the Pandemonium, or Devil's Cloyster, of Richard Bovet, Gent. (1684).
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