Posthumous Humanity: A Study of Phantoms/Chapter 11

We have passed in review, in the preceding chapters, the beginnings of the mesmeric ether and its chief modes of action. Let us now resume our inquiry upon a higher level. Why the exceeding rarity of the projection of the Double?

The answer to this question, which we have had to leave in suspense until now, has become possible, since the elements of the problem have been brought out in the successive analyses that we have made above. These elements are two in number—the fluidic being, which is virtually in each of us, and the mesmeric ether. The first is the gasiform ​duplicate of the human body. Its existence has been proven by the phenomena of duplication, and by this fact, that persons who have lost an arm or a leg often experience pains in the missing member—a member which the Seeress of Prevorst perceived distinctly on all amputated persons. It plays a purely passive part, and only becomes animated under the action of the vital fluid. The latter, whose reservoir is the nervous apparatus, is developed in great quantity as the result of a very strong mental strain, a moral commotion, certain diseases, or other physiological causes. Under its vivifying influence, the inner being awakens, and, although remaining always in the latent state, reveals itself by unequivocal manifestations. One would say, then, that there was in man a second personality entirely different from the ordinary personality, and putting itself at times in antagonism with the latter. If the energies that it receives from the thaumaturgic fluid are so potent as to enable it to burst the bonds of its prison and assume momentarily an independent existence, it detaches itself from the body and shows itself under its visible form. This is duplication. This phenomenon is observed only in some organizations exceptionally gifted in the matter of sensitiveness; and this explains its extreme rarity.

There are persons in whom the fluidic being, while remaining invisible, manifests itself naturally and, so to say, at will. The agency of the mesmeric ether is here latent, for no apparent cause indicates ​its action, which is exclusively due to a special predisposition of the organism. These mediums of a new kind present a most curious fact, inexplicable at first sight. Their fluidic personality, like the familiar demon of Socrates, is a slave always ready to execute the wishes of the master. Occasionally, however, it becomes mutinous, argumentative, threatens to disobey. To insist is then dangerous, for one exposes himself to grave reprisals. We find in Des Mousseaux a singular story of this kind. I copy it in brief:

M. de B., a fugitive from the French Revolution, had retired to Palermo, where he practised medicine. There was much talk at this time of a seeress called the Sybil of Etna, because she lived at the foot of this mountain. M. de B. at first paid no attention to it. But the facts related of this extraordinary woman becoming more and more the subject of conversation, his scepticism was at last shaken, and he went one day to Etna, to satisfy himself as to the knowledge of the prophetess. Instead of meeting, as he had expected, an old sorceress, wrinkled and bent by age, he found, before the cottage pointed out to him, a woman of about thirty, having all the attractions of youth and beauty. The following dialogue then took place between them:

"The Sybil of Etna?"

"Is myself."

"You, so young? Could you tell me my past and my future?"

​"Certainly. Enter; you shall see and judge."

"Here is some paper," said the young girl, as soon as they were inside the house; "you shall write your questions yourself. Yet, no; you might think that the paper had been specially prepared. Tear out a leaf from your note-book, and put your questions upon it."

While speaking, she threw some dry herbs into the chimney-place; she then stirred up the fire. Some clouds of black smoke arose, and the paper being rapidly exposed to the flame, whose tongues shot through this thick spiral, was almost immediately withdrawn. A reply was found legibly written on it; it was correct. Astonished, but not yet convinced, the doctor several times repeated the experiment, varying his questions, and always obtained the same success. A certain intimacy having been formed between him and the young girl, he became a constant guest at the cottage, and could, at his ease, question the sybil about the secret of her art.

"Nothing is more simple," she told him. "I have at my orders a spirit of Etna. As soon as the fire burns and the smoke rises, he comes out of this curling vapour and traces characters upon the paper, which, wherever his claw has not touched it, remains pure and white. However, there are times when the spirit declares that he is not free, and that if I call him he cannot come. I have, it is true, powerful means to compel him, and if I ​venture upon them he comes, but in a state of fearful rage, and his threats long ring in my ears. At such moments I am afraid, and feel myself as on the eve of some terrible thing; he must not be defied."^[1]

Some time after that, the doctor was able to convince himself that the pythoness had told but the simple truth. Having come, one day, to beg her to give him news of his family, from whom he had received no letters, she replied:

"To-morrow, not to-day; for the spirit cannot come this time; I do not dare to compel him."

However, overcome by the pressing impatience of ​her friend, the poor girl resigned herself to take the risk. She lights her prepared packet of dried herbs, and the paper which her hand holds is put in contact with the flame and smoke. But scarcely had she touched it than she fell as if under a hammer-stroke, rending the air with a frightful cry of distress. Her demon had horribly burnt it, and, as a souvenir of his anger, he left on her arm the imprint of a hand of fire.

The most curious fact of this story is not in the transcription of the replies below the questions. We have seen the same phenomenon occurring, with the exception of the singularity of the variation, with certain mediums, and on the tombs of certain wonder-workers of the first centuries of the Church. It was the fluidic being of the sybil which played the part of scribe. The new aspect of the question is in the repugnance which the invisible secretary showed at intervals, and the reasons which he alleged to secure an adjournment. From what I have said of the manifestations of the mesmeric personality, it is easy to understand that this unwillingness was the unconscious avowal of a temporary weakness. The fluidic being only attains its plenitude of action when it is vivified by a sufficient quantity of nervous ether. Now this quantity is necessarily variable, since it depends upon physiological causes that act upon the organism, and some of which are temporary or accidental. We know that the most gifted mediums ​experience at times eclipses in their faculty of second sight. When the pretended demon of Etna demanded a postponement of the execution of an order until the next day, it was because the fluidic personality of the pythoness had lost a part of its living force—I mean of its mesmeric ether—and that it had need of a delay of twenty-four hours to recuperate them fully. If summoned to obey, its weakness revolted against such an injustice, and it testified by the sternness of its reprisals that this barbarous order condemned it to frightful tortures.

Let us return to the posthumous phantom. Its visible manifestations are as rare as those of the living phantom. This comes evidently from the same causes. It is not enough that death frees the fluidic being from its bonds for the latter to become an independent and active personality, endowed with a life of its own; it is further necessary that at this moment it shall be suitably saturated with mesmeric ether. Now this fluid decreasing with age and illness, and losing at the same time its essential qualities, it is excessively rare that it should have sufficient strength and energy to vivify the phantom at the instant when the latter is about to open the doors of its prison. Let us quote in this connection a fact worthy of remark, which will furnish us with the direct proof. It has been noticed that the most tumultuous and persistent of the post-sepulchral manifestations, hence the best marked, resulted from violent deaths. I have ​mentioned an example of this kind in the first chapter. It concerned a man of the Canton d'Oust, who was hanged. In these moments of struggle, of suffering, and despair, a physiological labour was caused, which led to an abundant liberation of vital fluid. Under those circumstances the phantom could supply itself with living force, and make sure of a posthumous existence.

The living spectre and the spectre from beyond the tomb, having the same origin, can present in their manifestation the same common characteristics. Such are the noises that occur in certain habitations, where the chairs, furniture, crockery, &c., are seen to change place or to shake under the impulse of an invisible hand. When the hubbub is nocturnal, and the family has lost one of its members, the phenomenon should be attributed to the actions of the posthumous being. If the noises occur during the day, and no death has happened, the cause of the prodigy must be sought in the effects of mesmerism. By scrutinizing closely, we shall probably find that there is in the house some electric person whose fluidic self is the cause of all these disorders; usually it is a young girl. When it is a case of visions occurring in sleep, it is not so easy to discern the nature of the agent and to know if one has to do with a phenomenon of the objective or subjective order. We think, however, that the principle may be laid down that it must be ascribed in greater part to mesmerism. As a general rule, ​one should beware of pretended posthumous interferences, the part played by the ghost being purely passive except in cases of personal importunities that occur at the beginning of its new existence. Let us quote some examples.

The first is taken from the book of Valerius Maximus upon dreams, the details into which the author enters giving to his recital all the features of a historical fact. The poet Simonides, landing upon a certain coast, found a body lying without sepulchre, and rendered to it the last offices. During the night the dead man warned him not to embark the next day. He remained on shore; those who sailed were caught in a tempest and perished before his eyes. The grateful poet has preserved the memory of this adventure in an elegant piece of verse, thus raising to the dead man who had saved him a monument more lasting than that which he had given him upon a desert shore.

Must we see in the warning given to Simonides a posthumous interposition, or simply a vision of the poet? The death was recent, as the narrative would indicate, and the ghost might have consciousness of itself, and act within certain limits as an active force. But here is the announcement of an event which is about to take place. Now the prescience of the future is hardly within the domain of the shades. Their perceptions are conined to a vague notion of the present and to some ​reminiscences of the past. The advice which the poet received during his sleep should, then, be classed among the effects of magnetic clairvoyance, which is observed in the somnambule and the medium.

Let us quote another case from Dr. Kerner.

One day when the Seeress of Prevorst was in her kitchen, she perceived the spectre of a woman holding a child in her arms. Although familiarized with apparitions of this kind, she did not at first understand the meaning of this one. But this phantom having shown itself on the following days at the same place and in the same posture, the seeress had the idea to cause the flagstone upon which it planted itself to be raised, and to dig at this spot. At a depth of several feet they found the corpse of a child. Madame Hauffe had the last offices paid to it, and the spectre appeared no more.

There is here no question of a dream, but of a phantom showing itself to a waking person. In every other circumstance this apparition would have to be taken seriously. But it concerns the Seeress of Prevorst, with whom spectres were in some sort a result of her physiological state, so much so that they seemed to spring up at her every step. There is no necessity, then, to see, in our opinion, in the double phantom of the mother and child anything more than a subjective phenomenon.

I will finish this study of the mesmeric ​personality with some views upon lycanthropy. This feature, perhaps the most obscure of the manifestations of the fluidic being, long seemed to me so utterly unreasonable that I did as with the questions of posthumous vampire and the incubus—I turned over without reading the pages that treated on this theme, and I gave but a very inattentive hearing to what was told me about these singular metamorphoses. If I decide to speak of it now, it is because it would not be wise to oppose a systematic denial to a multitude of facts reputed authentic which corroborate each other. However, as I only skirt along this subject in passing and, if I may venture to say, as a memorandum, I will confine myself to the two following examples.

The first occurred about fifteen years ago, at St. Lizier, in a house occupied by two brothers. It is from one of them that I have the story. It is almost literally as follows:

"I lived at that time in one of those little houses that you can see at the upper end of the town. I was about twelve years old, and my brother, older than myself, was perhaps seventeen or eighteen. We slept together in a room, to which we ascended by a little staircase of some steps. One evening we had just gone to bed, and were not yet asleep, when we heard some one ascending the steps which led to our room. Soon we saw before us an animal of the size of a calf. As the window had no blinds, ​and the night was clear, it was easy for us to make it out. Frightened at this sight, I clung to my brother, who at the first moment seemed as frightened as myself. But, soon recovering from his terror, he leaped out of bed, ran and caught up a pitchfork which was in a corner of the room, and, placing himself before the animal, said to it in a firm and resolute voice:

"'If thou comest by permission of God, speak; if from the devil, thou wilt have to deal with me.'

"My brother, already strong and vigorous, was renowned through all St. Lizier for his intrepidity. Thus encountered, the animal wheeled around, and in turning it struck with its tail the frame of my bed. I then heard it descending precipitately the steps of the staircase; but as soon as it had arrived at the bottom it disappeared, without my brother, who was at its heels, being able to see where it passed. Useless to add, the door of the house was fast shut. On my part, as soon as I had heard it descend the stairs I took courage, and as the window of the room was over the street-door, I had opened it to watch the strange visitor go out. I saw nothing. My brother and I thought that we had had to do with a wehr-wolf, and we accused an inhabitant of the vicinity, to whom were charged other adventures of this kind."

Here is a case of lycanthropy clearly defined, and yet it does not teach us much as to the nature of the phenomenon. They accused a man of that ​district; but how to prove that it was his mesmeric personality which was acting? The following fact is more explicit. It occurred about thirty years ago, at Serisols, in the Canton of St. Croix:

A miller, named Bigot, had some reputation for sorcery. One day when his wife rose very early to go and wash some linen not very far from the house, he tried to dissuade her, repeating to her several times, "Do not go there; you will be frightened." "Why should I be frightened?" answered the woman. "I tell you you will be frightened." She made nothing of these threats, and departed. Hardly had she taken her place at the washing-tub, before she saw an animal moving here and there before her. As it was not yet daylight, she could not clearly make out its form, but she thought it was a kind of dog. Annoyed by these goings and comings, and not being able to scare it away, she threw at it her wooden clothes-beater, which struck it in the eye. The animal immediately disappeared. At the same moment, the children of Bigot heard the latter utter a cry of pain from his bed, and add, "Ah! the wretch! she has destroyed my eye." From that day, in fact, he became one-eyed. Several persons told me this fact, and I have it from Bigot's children themselves.

Here there is no possible doubt as to the author of this scene of lycanthropy. It was certainly the Double of the miller which projected itself while he was in bed, and wandered about under an animal ​form. The wound which the phantom received at once repercussed upon the eye of Bigot, just as we have seen the same thing happen in analogous cases of the projection of the Double by sorcerers. It is the fate that sooner or later is reserved for every one who has the sad privilege of turning wehr-wolf. This personage is, by nature, an inoffensive being, who goes about nightly under the shape of some animal—a wolf, calf, dog, &c., and is satisfied with frightening people whom he visits or who meet him in the way. But when they take the matter seriously, and hunt the spectre with a weapon, there is sure to be found, next morning, in some neighbouring house a man riddled with wounds and refusing to explain how he came by them.

I shall not attempt to give an explanation of these prodigies, which are, in fact, an insoluble problem for myself. The fluidic and, consequently, elastic nature of the mesmeric personality permits of its adapting itself to lycanthropic forms; but where shall we place the efficient cause of these metamorphoses? Must we fall back upon atavism; in other words, upon the most delicate and least-known chapter of biology? I prefer to confess my incompetency, and to leave to those who are more skilled than myself the task of expounding the enigma. Yet I will add one final fact, for which Allan Kardec is responsible. It seems relative to the subject under consideration, and may cast a new light upon the very uncertain and obscure causes of lycanthropy. ​"Here is a fact, in connection with transfiguration, whose perfect authenticity we can endorse, and which happened in the years 1858 and 1859, near St. Etienne:—A young girl of fifteen years had this singular faculty of transfiguring herself, that is to say, of assuming at fixed moments all the appearances of deceased persons: the illusion was so complete, that it would seem as if the very person were before you, no detail being wanting in features, look, voice, and even jargon. These phenomena occurred hundreds of times without the desire of the young girl acting at all. She took on several times the appearance of her brother, deceased several years previously; she had not only the face, but the height and physical bulk as well. A physician of the place, a frequent eye-witness of these puzzling effects, and anxious to satisfy himself that he was not the sport of an illusion, made the following experiment. We have the facts from himself, from the father of the young girl, and from several other witnesses who are very honest and trustworthy. He conceived the plan of weighing the young girl in her normal state, then in that of the transfiguration, whilst she had the appearance of her brother, aged twenty odd years and much larger and stronger than herself. Well, he found that in this latter condition the weight was almost double. The experiment was conclusive, and it was impossible to attribute this appearance to a mere optical illusion."