Posthumous Humanity: A Study of Phantoms/Chapter 3

Is the existence in us of a living and phantasmal image, copying our external form as well as our interior organization, the privilege of the human species, or must it be considered as an attribute of animality? For every man initiated in the study of natural philosophy doubt is not permissible. He will unhesitatingly answer that the human animal is but a bough of the zoological tree, all his essential characteristics being found in different degrees in the other branches. This theoretical consideration, deduced from the great law of analogies which forms one of the principal bases of natural history, is experimentally confirmed by a great number of facts. Certain of these I will now cite:

Towards the end of 1869, finding myself at Bordeaux, I met one evening a friend who was going to a magnetic séance, and asked me to accompany him. I accepted his invitation, desiring to see magnetism at close quarters, which as yet I knew only by name. This séance presented nothing remarkable; it was but the repetition of what occurs at meetings of this kind. A young person who seemed quite lucid filled the part of somnambule, and answered questions which were put to her. I was, however, struck with ​one unexpected circumstance. Towards the middle of the evening one of the persons present, having noticed a spider on the floor, crushed it with his foot.

"Ah!" cried the somnambule at the same moment, "I see the spirit of the spider escaping."

In the language of mediums, as we know, the word spirit designates that which I have called the posthumous phantom.

"What is the form of this spirit?" asked the magnetizer.

"It has the form of the spider," replied the sleeper.

At the moment I did not know what to think of this apparition. I certainly did not doubt the clairvoyance of the somnambule, but not believing then in the reality of any posthumous manifestation on the part of man I could not admit it in animals. The history of the spider was only explained to me some years later, when, having acquired the certitude of the duplication of the human personality, I thought of searching for the same phenomenon in our most familiar animals. I mean those we call domestic. After some investigations I comprehended that the Bordeaux somnambule had not been the dupe of an hallucination, as sometimes happens with magnetic subjects, but that her vision was a reality. The following facts are the more conclusive in that they have to do with persons wide awake, and not with those in magnetic sleep. But, first of all, I ​must establish in animals the existence of the living phantom, which will lead us to the posthumous. Several examples of phantasmal duplication in animals are known. The following instance, which I borrow from De Mirville, is significant. As it is somewhat long, and contains details useless for our subject, I shall content myself with giving a brief abstract.

On April 18th, 1705, M. Milanges de la Richardière, son of an advocate to the Parliament of Paris, when riding on horseback in the village of Noisy-le-Grand, suddenly saw his horse stop, without any apparent obstacle that could explain this singularity. At the same time he perceived a shepherd, of a sinister countenance, carrying a crook, and accompanied by two black dogs with short ears, who said to him:

"Monsieur, return home; your horse will not go forward."

The horseman, who at first had laughed at the words of the shepherd, soon saw that the latter had but told the truth, for neither his encouragements nor his spurs could make the beast advance, and he was obliged to go back. Some days later, having fallen ill, doctors were called, who, after numerous unavailing attempts to cure him, declared that that which troubled the young Milanges was not of the nature of ordinary sickness, and began to talk of sorcery. Young Milanges then recollected the scene of the horse and the shepherd, and related ​it to his parents. However, there was still some uncertainty about it, until the young man one day entering his room saw this shepherd seated in his arm-chair. He wore the same dress as on the day of the meeting, held his crook in his hand, and had the two black dogs by his side. Terrified at this sight, M. Milanges called his servants, but, as usually happens in such adventures, the latter perceived nothing. The apparition was visible only to him to whom it had been sent. However, at about ten o'clock that night, the phantom-shepherd having flung himself upon the young man, the latter drew a knife from his pocket and made five or six cuts at the face of his adversary, who finally relinquished his hold. Some days later the shepherd, having come to ask pardon of M. Milanges, confessed that he was a sorcerer, and that it was he who had persecuted him.

The young man, then, had not been duped by an hallucination when he saw the shepherd in his room, escorted by his two dogs. The sorcerer had transported himself there by projecting the Double, and it was his phantom that M. Milanges saw seated in his arm-chair. The black dogs also were but two phantoms; and this fact proves that the practices of sorcery which permit the duplication of the human being may be applied to animals with equal success.^[1]

​The existence of the living phantom being demonstrated in animals, one conceives that it may be equally so as regards the posthumous phantom which is its continuation. This is supported by the following facts. The first was related to me by a farmer of the neighbourhood of Ste. Croix (Ariège), a serious man, and to some extent educated. Here is his story:

"One of my comrades was returning from his watch at a late hour of the night. He was a young man of my parish, who occupied an isolated farm. At some distance from his house he perceived an ass browsing in an oat-field by the side of the road. Moved by a feeling of neighbourly interest natural among farmers, he wished to take the unprofitable guest from the field, and advanced towards the animal to seize him and lead him to his own home until his owner should come to claim him. The ass allowing himself to be approached, my comrade removed him from the field and led him without resistance. He arrived thus at the very door of the stable; but at the moment when he was about to open it the beast suddenly disappeared from his hands like a shadow which vanishes. He looked ​around him, but perceived nothing. Seized with fright, he hurried into the house and awoke his brother, to tell him the adventure. The next morning they went together to the oat-field, anxious to learn whether so extraordinary a being had committed much havoc, but found the crop untouched. The mysterious animal had browsed upon imaginary oats."

"From whom did you get this story?"

"From the young man himself, to whom it happened, as well as from his family."

"Did you think of asking him whether the night was dark? The quadruped might have escaped under cover of the darkness."

"That is the first question that we put to him each time that he spoke to us about it. He invariably answered that there was not a cloud in the sky, and that the night was so clear that he perceived the trees and all the bushes several yards off; otherwise he would not have been able to make out the ass, which was foraging at some distance from the road. He added that he had distinctly seen the ass vanish before his eyes at the door of the stable."

The nature of this phantom is sharply indicated by the different circumstances of the tale. The animal's spectre, originating on the same principle as the human spectre, should exhibit posthumous manifestations analogous to those that are observed with the latter.

​We have established, by analysis of the apparitions mentioned in the first chapter, that the post-sepulchral man preserves the habits that he bas observed during life. He shows himself in his garden, his fields, his favourite walks. He is seen with a crook in his hand, when it is a shepherd; a prayer-book, when it is an ecclesiastic who appears; an instrument of husbandry, when the case is that of a cultivator. He seems to be attending to his daily occupations. The ass of St. Croix offers no exception. He is met at night, because, like the posthumous phantom, he shuns daylight. He is in an oat-field, pasturing according to the instinctive habit of his race, but in reality browses, as one would naturally infer, but the phantom of grass or grain. He follows his leader whilst they are upon the road, but refuses to enter the stable, which is for him a prison, and vanishes in order to escape it. Here we have the essential features of posthumous manifestations; and if the young man to whom we have spoken had inquired among his neighbours, he would have learned, in all probability, that some time previously a beast of burden had died and been buried on a neighbouring farm.

The following fact is not less authentic. Talking one day of nocturnal apparitions with an old Customs officer, I asked him, if, in his long night rounds, he had personally seen something of this kind.

"No," he answered; "but I will tell you a ​curious thing that happened to me while I was a Customs' guard."

"One evening, when I happened to be on guard with one of my comrades, we perceived, not far from the village where I lived, a mule which grazed before us, and seemed as though laden. Supposing that he was carrying contraband, and that his master had fled on seeing us, we ran after him. The mule dashed into a meadow, and, after having made different bolts to escape us, he entered the village, and here we separated. Whilst my comrade continued to follow him, I took a cross street, so as to head him off. Seeing himself closely pressed, the animal quickened his pace, and several of the inhabitants were awakened by the noise of his hoofs clattering on the pavement. I got in front of him to the crossing, at the end of the street through which he was fleeing, and at the moment when, seeing him close to me, I put out my hand to seize his halter, he disappeared like a shade, and I saw nothing but my comrade, who was as amazed as myself."

"Are you quite sure that he hadn't turned aside into another road?"

"Impossible; the place where we were had no outlet, and the only way he could get away was by passing over my body; and, besides, the night was clear enough for us to see all his movements. Next morning the inhabitants of the village were cross-questioning each other about the racket they had heard in the night."

​We may apply to this apparition that which I have said with respect to the preceding one. Like the ass of St. Croix, and like all posthumous phantoms, our mule shows himself at night. He is met in a pasture, all absorbed in his favourite occupation, that is to say, browsing imaginary grass. As soon as he finds himself tracked by the Customs officers he takes flight as though he were really carrying contraband in his panniers, and he vanishes when he sees himself about to be captured—all things which characterize the post-sepulchral spectre. The most curious circumstance of the story is the phantom pack which he carries on his back. I shall give in the following chapter the explanation of this fact.

The following story shows us a posthumous horse. In the neighbourhood of the place where De Mirville lived the author of this tale-was an old haunted castle. All who had stopped there were unanimous in complaining of nocturnal manifestations upon the premises which prevented them from sleeping.

In 1815 an English family, having come to stop there, soon found themselves obliged to pack of. They particularly mentioned the spectre of a horseman, armed at all points. Upon this subject the following minute account was given to De Mirville by one of his female relatives, who until then had not wished to pay any attention to the rumours which were about.

"Returning to Paris," said she to us, " and having ​ordered from the neigbouring town two good horses to draw our carriage the first stage, we left M. very briskly, and soon were beyond the avenues of the castle. All was going on well, when the carriage, going at a quick trot, suddenly stopped in the middle of an open plain, giving us a strong shock. My husband and I, flung to the bottom of the carriage, supposed at first that something had gone wrong with the harness; but we were soon completely undeceived, for blows began to rain upon the unfortunate animals, which began to back, snorting with terror. We supposed that they had sent either very skittish or very lazy horses, and we waited quietly, since there was no help for it; however, the crisis continuing, we concluded to put our heads out of the window to ask the coachman what had happened."

"Eh! madam, what has happened? Don't you see this horseman, who threatens my poor beasts with his lance and prevents them from passing?" and the whipping is doubled, and the beasts back continually. Then, at the same instant, he cried:

"Ah! God be praised, he has disappeared." Then, of their own accord, the poor beasts broke into a fast trot, but all covered with sweat, and trying to escape as quickly as possible, like animals in a panic.

Here there is no possible doubt as to the nature of the horse perceived by the coachman, and his ​team, since he was bestridden by a posthumous cavalier.

I might multiply examples, but I find myself stopped by an obstacle. In certain cases, not yet well defined, our internal personality may, by reason of its fluidic nature, take on animal forms, as I shall have occasion to show in one of the later chapters. Hence, when one is in the presence of the spectre of an animal, there is some reason to apprehend that this may be a lycanthropic manifestation of the human phantom, unless certain particularities do not identify, as in the preceding examples, its true origin. But I have said enough to establish the existence of the fluidiform personality in animals, and to demonstrate that the post-sepulchral humanity is but one particular case of a more general law that of posthumous animality.

The vegetable and animal kingdoms are so linked together, especially at their boundaries, by a host of points of contact, that one may ask himself whether trees and plants have their phantasmal duplication analogous to that of animals; the projection of the Double not being operative with vegetables, by reason of their absence of locomotion, the direct demonstration fails us. But we have indirect proofs which are not without a certain value. The first is afforded us by the experiments of the Marquis de Puységur; the second by the Seeress of Prevorst. When M. de Puységur had recognized the action of magnetism on man and, more generally, ​on animals, he asked himself whether he could produce any effect on plants, and magnetized the trees in his park. I will not bring in here the practice of this operation repeated by other magnetizers. I will content myself with saying that the mesmeric fluid exercises a certain action on trees, that it is easy to prove this by watching the change of aspect which is produced in the leaves, when the trunk and branches are subjected to the action of magnetism. From such effects we may presume the existence, in the interior of vegetable forms, of a vital fluid which the magnetizers call the soul of the plant, and which for us is the analogue of the fluidic Double which we have observed in animals. The Seeress of Prevorst distinguished clearly, whenever she looked at a tree, its fluidic Double encased in the vegetable form, and thus confirmed the physiological deductions of the magnetizers.

The passage from the vegetable to the mineral is still more easy than that from the animal to the plant. Reduced to its simplest form, the vegetable is no more than a slow crystallization of its constituent elements, performed in the laboratory of nature, and recalling what passes when a crystal is formed in the vessel of the chemist. In both cases, it is the atoms of simple bodies uniting differently, according to their nature and the circumstances in which they are placed. It may thence be conjectured that certain properties of vegetables have their analogues in minerals. Is the phantasmal doubling of the plant ​to be included in this category? The direct proof is still wanting, and analogies do not reveal much; for the existence of this duplication in vegetables seems to be, as in animals, a physiological phenomenon, and we all know that physiology has nothing to do with the crystallization of inorganic bodies. Nevertheless, we do not hesitate to reply in the affirmative; for, in default of the direct demonstration, we have a mass of proofs derived from another order of facts that I will mention in the following chapter. For the moment, I will be con-tent to say that the Seeress of Prevorst perceived the soul of inorganic bodies as well as those of vegetables. It was their ethereal Double mixed, probably, with some molecules of their proper substance.^[2]

One can realise this fact, if he considers that all bodies of any density contain innumerable pores connecting the interior and exterior, and consequently they are in every sense penetrated by the universal fluid in which they are bathed. The atoms ​of this fluid emitted from the stars in the form of vibrations of light, heat, and electricity, impinge upon the molecules of the objects they traverse and rebound until they come into equilibrium. This collection of ethereal atoms naturally takes the external form of the body within which it takes up its position and whose phantom it becomes.^[3] Certain phenomena which the phantom presents in its manifestations, whether it be living or posthumous, which I shall analyze in the next chapter, find in this theory a rational explanation, and give it in some sort experimental sanction.