CHAPTER III.

Influence of the imagination, seconded by physical accessories ; in producing an habitual belief in marvellous narrations, by music, by the habit of exalting the moral faculties, by un- founded terror, and by presentiments — Sympathetic emotions increase the effects of the imagination — Cures produced by the imagination— Flights of the imagination, effected by diseases, fastings, watchings, and mortifications — Moral and physical remedies successfully opposed to these flights of the imagination.
To the physical causes which involved pretended sorcerers in deplorable errors, was added an auxiliary which alone is sufficient to produce the evil — namely, Imagination.
Such is its power, that some men have ascribed to its wanderings the origin of all magical illusions, but this is going too far. Imagination combines the impressions it has received ; it does not create.* In the phantoms of
* This definition of our author, although critically correct, yet does not embody the idea generally entertained of Imagination, which may be truly said to create ; inasmuch as it selects quali- ties and circumstances from a great variety of different objects, and, by recombining and disposing them differently, forms a new
F 2
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sleep, or the reveries of waking hours, it presents nothing which has not either been seen, or felt, or heard. Terror, melancholy, uneasiness, or pre- occupation of mind, easily produce that intermediate state between waking and sleeping, in which dreams become actual visions. Thus, proscribed by the triumvirs, Cassius Parmensis fell asleep, a prey to cares too well justified by his position. A man of an alarming form appeared to him, and told him he was his evil genius. Accustomed to believe in the existence of supernatural beings, Cassius had no doubt of the reality of the apparition ; and by superstitious minds such a vision is regarded as the certain warning of that violent death which an outlaw can scarcely escape.
creation peculiarly its own. It is true that its influence is chiefly confined to objects of sight ; and we must admit that " we cannot, indeed," as Addison remarks, " have a single image in the fancy, that did not make its first entrance through the sight." Were we, therefore, capable of analysing every illusion, we should most pro- bably be able to trace, at least, many of its components, although perhaps not the whole, to objects which had previously made a lively impression upon our sight. It admits of intellectual combi- nations and the association of abstract ideas, without which none of those conversations and reasonings that are carried on in dreams could occur. This view of imagination, however, does not weaken the position of our author; and there can be no doubt that, in a mind not under the control which education bestows, dreams and the most extravagant illusions acquire a powerful influence in regu- lating its affections and exciting its passions. Much depends on the physical condition and health of the individual at the time ; and, to the state of the nervous system may be ascribed the pleasurable or distressing nature of illusions, whether the effect of simple reverie or of dreaming : the influence which they exert on our conduct, or apparently on our destiny, depends much on the degree of superstitious credulity which governs the individual. —Ed.
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The same explanation may be applied to the vision which appeared to Brutus, without intimidating him, on the eve of the battle of Philippi ; and still more for- cibly to the dream of the Emperor Julian.*
The night preceding his death, a Genius seemed to retire from him with an air of consternation. He re- cognised in the spectre, the Genius of the Empire, whose image might be seen in everything around him; reproduced upon the coin ; reverenced by the soldiers upon the centre of his standards ; and doubtless also placed in his tent. Uneasy at the famine which afflicted his troops ; certain that, even in the bosom of his army, a religion op- posed to his own faith raised up numerous enemies, and perhaps assassins ; on the eve of a decisive battle ; is it surprising that the enthusiastic disciple of the theurgian philosophy, whose doctrine assigned so impor- tant an office to the Genii, should have seen such a vision in a perplexing dream ? Julian believed that he actually saw the Genius of the Empire sad, and ready to abandon him.
Let us take another example. An aged woman was mourning for a brother whom she had just lost : suddenly she thought she heard his voice, which, by a blameable deception, was counterfeited near her. Seized with fear, she declared that the spirit of her brother had appeared to her radiant with light. She would not have seen such a vision if her memory had not, from her childhood, been filled with stories of ghosts and apparitions.
These stories may be traced to the most ancient times,
* Ammian Mar cell. lib. xxv.
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and then they were not counterfeited. Let us remember that in the sanctuaries, in the time of Orpheus, they in- voked the dead. Even in ancient Judea these phantas- magorical apparitions abounded. The first accounts of which were then neither founded on dreams, nor upon the wandering of the imagination, nor upon the desire of deceiving; the individuals did actually see what they asserted they had seen; and which, as they were con- stantly stimulated by such narrations, or the recollection of them, and overcome by sorrow yet full of curiosity, they both feared and desired to behold.
In the mountains of Scotland, and in some countries of Germany, the people still believe in the reality of apparitions, which are said to be warnings of an approach- ing death.* One sees, distinct from one's self, as it were,
* Fantasmagoria, or Collection of Stories, &c. translated from the German, (2 vols. 12mo., Paris, 1812), vol. n. pp. 126—142. These apparitions are denominated " Wraiths," or " Taisch," which means simply visions ; and the persons beholding them are called seers. They are generally prophetic of evil, but not always ; as births, marriages, and many other events, are said to be foretold by these beholders of the shadows "of coming events." In the Highlands of Scotland, at one period, they were generally and firmly believed. Although many seers might be in the same place or apartment, yet all of them did not see the same vision, unless they touched each other, when it became common. The gift was also inherent : it could not be taught ; but Mr. Aubrey says it: was taught in the Isle of Skye.
Every Highlander believes that he has an attendant genius or spirit, which is always present with him from the cradle to the grave. This spirit is a counterpart of himself, in form, in dress, and in every other respect : but, although thus peculiarly his attendant, yet the spirit may be separated from him for a time, and may perform acts, when distant from him, which his principal shall execute at
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another self, a figure in every respect resembling one's own in form, features, gesticulations, and attire. To produce a similar miracle is not beyond the resources of art. It
somefuture time. Thus if the person is likely to die, or to perform some act that may endanger life, his wraith may appear to his distant friends, and thus communicate the sad news, or anticipate the event. In a few words, the Highland wraith is the simulacrum or imago of the ancient Romans. The visions may be of the spectre alone, who may be seen either by the individual himself, or by his friends or by strangers ; but, when the attendant genius appears to his principal his back only is seen : on other occa- sions the vision may consist of a number of persons or things ; for example, the whole ceremony of a funeral or a marriage may be displayed.
The inhabitants of the Western Islands and of St. Kilda were especially liable to be affected by these impressions. The apparitions were generally exact resemblances of the individuals, in person, in features, and in clothing. They attacked the individuals some months before they sickened of the disease of which they died. A man on a sick bed was visited by a lady, the wife of the clergyman of St. Kilda, and was asked by her if at any time he had seen any resemblance of himself : he replied in the affirmative, and told her that, to make farther trial, as he was going out of his house of a morning, he put on straw rope garters, instead of those he for- merly used ; and having gone to the fields, his other self appeared in straw garters. The conclusion of the story is, that the sick man died of that ailment ; and the lady no longer questioned the truth of such presages. — (Sir W. Scott. A Legend of Montrose, chap. xvii. note Wraiths.)
In such cases, it is evident that the illusion was truly the result of imagination, operating under the influence of derangement of the nerves, the body being already in a state of incipient disease. The uneasy sensations of approaching disease would naturally awaken in a mind educated in the belief of such apparitions, the idea of some impending evil, and Imagination would readily operate in completing the illusion. [It
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will be necessary in the first place to place a concave mirror, or segment of a large sized sphere, at the back of a deep closet ; and to dispose a lamp at the top of the cabinet, in such a manner that
It is, also, probable that, as the wraiths or apparitions of them- selves, which are seen by these islanders, always appear in the early morning, and in mountainous districts subject to fogs, they may be the result of an optical deception, such as occurs at the Brocken, one of the Hertz or Harz Mountains, and occasionally in Cumberland. St. Kilda is the most northern of the Hebrides, and consists of an unequal mountainous ridge, the highest point of which Benochan, rises 1,380 feet above the level of the sea ; and, as in the Harz, the south-west wind, which prevails, brings with it fogs. As many of our readers may not be aware of the nature of the Spectre of the Brocken, we shall abridge the lucid account of it, from Gmelin" given by Sir David Brewster. — {Letters on Natu- ral Magic.) We may remark that this spectre seems to have been observed at a very early period, as the blocks of granite on the summit of the Brocken are called the sorcerer's chair and altar ; a spring of pure water, the magic fountain ; and the anemone, on its margin, the sorcerer's flower, — names which are presumed to have originated in the rites of the great Saxon idol Vortho, who was secretly worshipped in the Brocken. This mountain was visited by Mr. Hane, on the 23d of May, 1797. " The sun rose at four o'clock, a.m., through a serene atmosphere, which afterwards became clouded with vapours brought by a west wind. A quarter past four, Mr. Hane, looking towards the south-west, observed at a great distance a human figure of monstrous size. His hat having been nearly carried away by a gust of wind, he suddenly raised his hand to his head ; the colossal figure did the same. He next bent his body — the spectral figure repeated the action, and then vanished. It soon, however, returned in another spot, and mimicked all his gestures as before. He then called the landlord of the inn, when, after a short time, two colossal figures appeared over the spot where the single figure had previously
' Gbttingen. Journal der Wissenschaften, 1798, vol. i. part in.
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its light may not pass straight through, but, on the con- trary, fall with all its brilliancy upon the spot where it will be necessary to; place yourself, in order to obtain the best possible effect from the mirror. To this spot conduct, without his knowledge, an uneducated man, one given to reverie and the terrors of mysticism ; contrive that the folding-doors of the closet shall suddenly open, and pre- sent to him the deceptive glass. He will see his own image come forth from the depth of the darkness, and advance towards him radiant with light ;* and in such
appeared. Retaining their position, these two spectral figures were joined by a third ; and all three mimicked the movements of the two spectators. These spectres appeared standing in the air." Similar aerial figures have been several times observed, amongst the hills surrounding the lakes in Cumberland.
These spectral illusions, so admirably calculated to impress the credulous with their supernatural origin, " are merely shadows of the observer, projected on dense vapour or thin fleecy clouds, which have the power of reflecting much light." They are most frequently seen at sunrise, when the sun throws its rays hori- zontally, when the shadow of the observer is thrown neither upwards nor downwards. Sometimes, " owing to the light reflected from the vapours or clouds becoming fainter farther from the shadow, the head of the observer appears surrounded with a halo ;a which affords another reason for strengthening the belief in the reality of the spectre. The St. Kilda spectre, with its straw garters, is thus easily explained." We refer our readers to Brewster's little volume, to which we are indebted for the above explanation of the Spectre of the Brocken.
Time and superior education, however, will gradually expel such superstitions : they have ceased to prevail even at St. Kilda. — Ed.
* " I approached the closet ; the two doors opened without the least noise, the light which I held in my hand was suddenly extin- guished, and, as if before a mirror, I saw my own image advance * Brewster, 1. c. pp. 153, 154.
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a shape that he will think it possible to take hold of it, but in advancing for that purpose it will disappear. He cannot explain this vision naturally; he does not attempt it ; he has seen it, actually seen it ; he cannot forget it. The recollection of it pursues him, besets him, and soon, perhaps, his imagination becomes so excited that the phenomenon is spontaneously reproduced with- out the aid of the exterior cause.* The disorder of the mind is communicated to the nerves. The credulous man languishes, wastes away, and at last dies. The records of his unhappy end survive him. Invalids, or people with a tendency to disease, hearing the legend repeated, meditate upon it ; their reveries are impregnated by it ; and they end at last, by seeing the vision which they have heard related from their youth ; and being per- suaded that it is the forerunner of death, they die of their own conviction.f
from the closet, the light which it spread illuminating a large portion of the apartment." — Fantasmagoriana, torn. n. pp. 137, 138.
* This explanation is perfectly correct in reference to spectral illusions within a house or a temple ; but those of the second sight seen in the morning, and in the open air, can only be ex- plained as in the foregoing note. — Ed.
t No better explanation can be given of the fulfilment of the pre- diction of these seers : death, when predicted, and the prediction when believed will take place. Such creeds assimilate every event to themselves ; even the seer himself is the dupe of his credulity, a circumstance less wonderful than the confessions of witchcraft, or of the insane German werewolf, Peter Stump, who murdered sixteen persons, from an idea that he was one of the sorcerers termed werewolves, who, by means of an ointment and girdle, were believed to become real wolves ; tearing to pieces and devouring men, women, and children. This wretched maniac was inhumanly tortured with red-hot pincers, and broken on the wheel. — En.
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If such is still human credulity, can we suppose that, in less enlightened times, the Thaumaturgists, endowed with so many means of acting upon the imagination, would have allowed so powerful an instrument for ex- tending the empire of the marvellous to have remained idle.* Supported by some real, but extraordinary facts, the recital of prodigies and apparent miracles everywhere governed credulity ; or rather it formed, as in the present day, almost all the instruction allotted to the vulgar, and prepared their eyes beforehand for seeing everything, their ears for hearing everything, and their minds for believing everything.
Thus prepared, thus excited by some powerful cause, where will the influence of Imagination stop ? By turns it is terrible and seducing, but always ready to confound us with unforeseen phenomena, and intoxicate us by fan- tastic marvels; to suspend or excite the action of our senses to the highest possible degree ; to withdraw the play of our organs from the empire of our will, and the regular course of nature ; to impress upon them emotions and an unknown strength, or to render them rigid and im- moveable ; to excite the mind to folly, or even to frenzy ; at one time creating objects far above the tameness of humanity, and at another raising terrors more dangerous than the perils which they represent ; such are the flights, such the freaks of the Imagination ; and ruled, in its turn, by the disorder fallen upon our physical func- tions, it originates fresh errors, new fears, more powerful
* See chap. xm. upon the subject of the optical illusions pro- duced by the ancient Thaumaturgists.
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deliriums, and torments ; until remedies purely material, by curing the body, restore to the mind that calm which the diseased condition of the nervous system had taken from it.
What pretended miracles would not a skilful Thauma- turgist work with a power susceptible of such various application, and endowed with so irresistible an influ- ence ? Let us not speak of contracted minds only ; or of men as ignorant and weak as the unfortunate beings whose miseries we have just retraced ; let the strongest minded man suppose himself, unconsciously, exposed to every cause which can act upon his imagination, will he, we may inquire, dare to affirm that these influences will not operate upon him; that his moral strength will triumph, and that there shall be no perturbation in his heart, no confusion in his thoughts ?
The ancients were not ignorant of the advantages which, under various relations, could be taken of the in- fluence of the Imagination. This fascinating and power- ful agent explains an immense number of the wonders described in their histories. Our path, however, is traced out, namely, to render these marvels credible, by opposing to them analogous facts observed in modern times, facts in which imposture has not been more suspected than the intervention of a supernatural power.
No less calm than persevering in her mystic reveries, the celebrated Madame de Guyon declared to Bossuet, her accuser and judge, and also related in her life,* that she had received from God such an abundance of grace
* Vie de Mme. de Guyon écrite par elle-même, torn. ii. chap. xiii — xxii. ; torn, in, chap. i.
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that her body could not bear it ; and that it was necessary that she should be unlaced and placed upon her bed, in order that some other person should receive from her the superabundance of the grace which filled her. This communication, she asserted, was effected in silence, and often upon the absent; and could alone relieve her feeling of excess. The Duke de Chevreuse, a man of serious and austere manners, also affirmed to Bossuet that he had felt this communication of grace when seated near Madame de Guyon ; and he ingenuously asked the prelate if he did not experience a similar sen- sation.* Entitled at once to ridicule, and equally to compassion, these two persons were not very unlike the Prophets and Pythonesses, who are described to us as being so subjugated by the God whose presence filled their whole being, as to be forced to utter the oracles, which he himself placed in their mouths, to be an- nounced to the world.
Let the excitement increase, and man will fall into a state of slavery capable of making him not only believe in assumed miracles, but in his power of working them, because it withdraws him as much from the empire of reason as from that of physical impressions. This ecs- tacy has attracted the attention of physiologists, and provoked some learned researches, the results of which will probably be confirmed by ulterior observations.
To examine it in this light would carry us too far from our subject ; we must, therefore, limit ourselves to those facts immediately connected with it. We are assured
* Burigny. Vie de Bossuet, (12mo. Paris, 1761) pp. 274, 275 et 280.
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that the Hindoos can fall at pleasure into ecstacy, a state to which the Kamschatdales, the Jakoutes, and natives of North and South America are very prone. It has been observed, that since the persecutions exer- cised by Europeans in the formerly happy countries of Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands, the imagina- tion of the followers of the ancient religion has been much excited.* This ecstacy, or trance, is in some degree a benefit to an ignorant and superstitious people ; it gives them instantaneously the power of forgetting their miseries, beneath the weight of which they drag on a languishing existence. We may, in this point of view, compare it to intoxication, to the heavy torpor produced by stupifying drugs, which have been sometimes used by unhappy beings to enable them to bear the agonies of torture.f Volney attributed the extraordinary courage exhibited in the midst of most frightful torments by the natives of Northern America, to the effects of a state bordering on ecstacy.j
* Ferdinand Denis, Tableau des Sciences Occultes, pp. 201 — 205.
f See chap. i. vol. n.
% Œuvres complètes de Volney, torn. vu. pages 443 — 450. The Editor is of opinion, that this degree of insensibility to cor- poreal suffering, depends on directing the mind powerfully to some object, or train of recollection, capable of abstracting it wholly from the sensations produced upon the nervous system by extraneous impressions. It is well known that directing the mind to the seat of disease, will augment both the diseased action going on in the part, and also increase to a degree of acute suffering any pain previously felt in the part. Thus, independent of the counter- irritation produced by a blister, much of its- beneficial influence arises from the attention being directed to a new seat of pain. On this
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Ecstacy has, above all, the advantage of supplying, to the believer, all that the coldness of the testimony has left defective in the descriptions of celestial happiness. Man being, by reason of his weak nature, susceptible of prolonged pain and short enjoyments, can much more easily imagine the torments of the infernal regions than the joys of heaven. This ecstacy does not describe these pleasures, nor prove their future existence ; it causes them to be actually tasted. That the ancients should have studied the cause and known the power of this ecstatic fervour is hardly to be doubted ;# and if it was necessary to lead some ardent imaginations by secondary agents, the Thaumaturgists had at their control the pomp of cere- monies, the splendour of illusions, the charm of pageants, and the seductions of melody. Music alone was sufficient to plunge many young and tender souls into the most delicious illusions. It was from that source that Cha- banon f twice in his youth experienced feelings similar to the descriptions of the ecstacies of the Saints. " Twice/' said he, " when listening to the notes of the organ or to sacred music, have I thought myself trans- ported into heaven ; and this vision had something so real in it, and I was so carried out of myself while it lasted, that the actual presence of the objects could not have
principle, Protestant martyrs, by concentrating their thoughts on the eternal triumphs they are about to enjoy for their constancy in their faith, have felt little or nothing under the tortures of the Inquisition, or the consuming flames of the stake. — Ed.
* Tertullian. De Ecstasi.
f Chabanon. Tableau de quelques circonstances de ma vie, 8çc. Œuvres posthumes, pp. 10, 11.
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had upon me a stronger effect." Had this young man, in less enlightened times, been placed under the disci- pline of Thaumaturgists, who were desirous of cultivating this inclination to reverie, the momentary ecstacy would have become an actual durable vision which he would no more have doubted than his own existence, and the truth of which he would have attested with all the obstinacy of a convinced man, and all the enthusiasm of a martyr.
We have already spoken of the magical influence of harmonious sounds.* We can also recal to remembrance how Alexander and Erick-le-bonf were excited to a deadly anger by warlike songs. The feeling experienced by these two heroes is still produced upon soldiers when marching to battle to the sound of warlike instruments.
Alone, without exterior aid, without physical im- pressions, the imagination can warm itself to a degree of fury, to the pitch of delirium.
To be convinced of this fact, it will be sufficient to attempt upon ourselves a similar experiment, and in disposing ourselves either for or against any object occupying our thoughts, we shall be surprised at the
* Refer to chap. vu. vol. i.
f Saxo Grammat. Hist. Dan. lib. xn. pp. 204, 205. Erick le Bon, or St. Erick, was a Swedish nobleman of the name of Ind- wardun, connected by alliance with the Royal Families of Sweden and Denmark. He was elected to the throne of Denmark in 1155. He marched against Finland, which he subdued, solely to convert the inhabitants to the Christian faith ; and left the Bishop of Upsal in the country to found churches, whilst he himself framed a code of laws for them. He was killed by a party of Danes, who had unexpectedly landed on the coast, under Prince Magnus, in 1161. The fact mentioned in the text merely demonstrates the highly excitable condition of his nervous system. — Ed.
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degree of anger or tender feeling to which this voluntary illusion would soon lead us. Let us ask ourselves whether it is not necessary for the dramatic author to identify himself with the impassioned character he personifies, in order to portray the real expression of his feelings. Where such is not the case, eloquence and poetry offer him but insufficient resources ; we perceive, at once, that it is he, and not his hero, that speaks. The actor, in his turn, cannot succeed if he does not actually become the character he represents, as far at least as the theatrical regulations permit him, The costume, the attendance, the presence, and language of the personages, whom he is to struggle against or defend, second him in his illusion ; he is moved, before he dreams of having excited our emotions ; his cries come from his heart ; his tears are often not feigned. What then would be the effect, if a personal interest actually deep and present were to be attached to the passions and sentiments he expressed ? He would then actually be what he assumes, and with more truth, perhaps, or at least more energy, than the personage whose transports he reanimates. Let us go farther, and freeing the imp assioned being from the restraint imposed by public observation, place him in the situation in which I have several times observed a young woman placed, who was endowed with a powerful organi- zation and a very excitable and lively imagination. It would have been more than imprudent to have confided to her the character of an heroine, chanting the song of war, and precipitating herself armed upon the enemies of her country. This single thought, a weapon of which she might possess herself, some words, some verses that she
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might recite, would suddenly intoxicate her with* fury strangely contrasting with her gentle and amiable disposi- tion. The most loved being would not long have been safe from her blows. This sudden and formidable excite- ment inspires the belief that what has been related of the Scandinavian heroes is perfectly credible. " They were seized, from time to time, with a fit of frenzy. They foamed with rage, made no distinction of persons, but struck at random with their swords, friends, enemies, trees, stones, animate and inanimate objects ; they swal- lowed burning coals, and threw themselves into the fire. When the fit was at an end, they suffered long from extreme exhaustion."* If as the author I have just quoted seems to think, this was the effect of an intoxicating beverage, the Sagas which contain so many examples of the fact, would sometimes have alluded to the causes of it. I have no doubt that these furious movements proceeded from the habitual state of the Imagination rendering it liable at times to an excessive excitement. The peculiar sentiments of these warriors, who knew no happiness but that of seeing the blood of their enemies or their own blood flow ; and whose paradise was open only to heroes dying in battle, were quite sufficient to excite this transient frenzy : we are neatly as much astonished that they were not continually a prey to it.f
* Depping. History of the Expeditions of the Normans, and their Settlement in France in the 10th century, vol. i. p. 46.
f The same degree of wild enthusiastic fervour was lately wit- nessed by a British officer, who was travelling in Algeria, at the festival of a sect termed Arouates. The ceremonies consisted in the most frantic exhibition of actions almost preternatural, but evidently the result of a highly excited imagination. — Ed.
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Will not an excess of terror sometimes produce the same delirium as an excess of courage? Why not, if reason is equally disordered by both ? The Samoyedes, says a traveller, are exceedingly susceptible of fear.# If they are unexpectedly touched, or if their minds are struck by some unforeseen terrifying object, they lose the use of their reason, and are seized with a maniacal fury. They arm themselves with a knife, a stone, a club, or some other weapon, and throw themselves upon the person who has occasioned their surprise or fright ; and if un- able to satisfy their rage, they howl and roll upon the ground like an enraged animal. We must here observe, that the original cause of these peculiarities is the fear the Samoyedes entertain of sorcerers ; and the unhappy beings, tormented by the delirium which is the result of it, are consequently looked upon as sorcerers. What a fertile mine for the exploits of a worker in miracles !
More generally fear places the weak man completely in the power of him who inspires him with the passion. If, as many observers have thought, fear is the real operating principle in all that has been related of serpents and other animals charming the feeble bird they intend to make their prey, the look of a strong threatening man ought to exercise a similar influence over weak minds ; nor can they, in fact, withstand it. Their enchained faculties leave them powerless, senseless, under the influence of the charm. In the legends of every country there is nothing more common than the
* Wagner. Memoirs of Russia, %c. p. 207.
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inevitable power which the fascinating glance of a magi- cian has exercised. This power is not entirely chimerical ; although mean, or common in its origin, yet it has an unbounded ascendancy over the timid Imagination.
And does not, we may inquire, man himself conspire to aid such an ascendancy, when, at the very moment that he is attempting to fortify himself by plausible reasonings, he spontaneously gives himself up to deadly terrors. Without any exterior circumstance to cause his folly, a weak mind (often so on this point only) is filled with one fixed idea ; for example, that such or such an age will inevitably lead to the end of life ! Such a disease must terminate fatally ! How many of these vain presentiments have rendered inevitable the event which seemed to justify them. They operate continually and destructively upon the weakened nerves, which would have recovered their natural vigour if they had not been influenced by these mournful apprehensions.
If fear, instead of spontaneously rising in a soul where reason can still struggle against it, should be the result of a formidable power, the limits of which we dare not assign, its effects will be no less sure and terrible than those of steel and poison. To prove this assertion, a recent example can be joined to the testimony of all the facts offered to us in ancient history. There exists in the Sandwich Isles a religious community pretending to a power, obtained from heaven by the prayers addressed to it, of destroying every enemy they wish to overcome. If any one incurs its hatred, they announce to him that imprecations against him will be commenced ; and not
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unfrequently this declaration is sufficient to cause the unfortunate individual exposed to their anathema to die of fright, or to commit suicide.*
The influence that sympathy and a propensity to imi- tation f exercise upon the organs, is also felt upon the
* Lisianski. Voyage round the World in 1803 — 1806. Biblio- thèque Universelle, année 1816. Littérature, tome ni. pp. 162 — 163.
f A thousand instances might be brought forward to demon- strate the influence of imitation. One of the most remarkable was the dancing mania which prevailed all over Europe in the fourteenth century, and which actually grew into a real epidemic. It is only requisite to relate two or three instances of more recent date in this kingdom. At a cotton manufactory, at Holden Bridge, in Lancashire, a girl, on the 15th of February, 1787, put a mouse into the bosom of another girl, who was thereby thrown into convulsions, which lasted for twenty-four hours. On the following day, six girls, who had witnessed these convulsions, were affected in a similar manner, and on the 17th six more. The alarm became so great, that the whole work was stopped, under the idea that some particular disease had been introduced in a bag of cotton opened in the house. On the 18th three more and on the 19th eleven more girls were seized. Three of the whole number, namely twenty-four, lived two miles from the factory, and three were at another factory at Clitheroe, about five miles off, but who were strongly impressed with the idea of the plague, as the convulsions were termed, being caught from the cotton. Dr. Sinclair relieved all the cases by electrifying the affected girls . The convulsions were so strong, as to require four or five persons to hold the patients, and to prevent them from tearing their hair and dashing their heads on the floor or on the walls."
Upwards of a century ago, a woman in Shetland, labouring under epilepsy, was attacked with paroxysms of the disease in the
8 Gentleman's Mag. 1787. p. 268, quoted in Hecker's Epidemics, trans, by D. Babington, p. 141.
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Imagination like the contagious effects of laughter, yawning, tears, depression, and enthusiasm. A widow who was affected with an hysterical melancholy, com- mitted actions so strange that she was supposed to be possessed with a demon. It was not long before some young girls about her were similarly attacked. They were cured as soon as they were taken from her ; and the widow herself, under the treatment of an able physi- cian, recovered her reason with her health.* How many stories of demons could be reduced to as few words. We should be wrong if we supposed there was nothing but deception in the history of the convulsions of St. Me- dard,f and those of other people who fell at once under the influence of the evil spirit. The greatest number of these men were, on the contrary, honest in intention, but necessitated to this imitation from their excitable organization, weak minds, and heated imaginations. The
church ; the result was, that many adult females and some chil- dren became affected in a similar manner ; and the disease has continued to occur very frequently, ever since, during divine ser- vice. When Dr. Hibbert visited the Island of Unst, and was attending the kirk of Baliasta, a female shriek was heard ; but the person was carried out by the desire of the clergyman, who also requested any woman, who felt that she might be similarly affected, to leave the church. Dr. Hihbert says, " On leaving the kirk, I saw several females writhing and tossing about their arms, on the green grass. "a — Ed.
* Fromann. De Fascinatione, &c. p. 55.
f St. Medard was a native of Salency, in Picardy. He was descended of a noble family, and flourished in the fifth and sixth centuries. He was inaugurated Bishop of Noyonin 530, and died in 561, not at a very advanced age. — En.
a Description of the Shetland Islands. 4to. p. 401.
INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION. 87
poets have probably not exaggerated in their descriptions of the fury with which the Bacchants were seized when celebrating their orgies. The greater part of these Bac- chants were more morally than physically intoxicated. They only imitated involuntarily the transports of some priestesses ; but whether the latter kept within the bounds of and played an arranged part, or whether, placed under the influence of the Imagination, excited by spirituous liquors, songs, instruments of music, and the cries, and the mystic disorders that surrounded them, they were them- selves the first to feel that all which their example inspired in others, may be questioned.
The Imagination is not always hurtful, for how many unhoped-for, sudden, and prodigious cures have been effected by it. Our medical books are filled with facts of this nature, which among an unenlightened people would easily pass for miracles. It requires also some effort of reason to see nothing but what is natural in these sudden effects of the influence of Imagination. Man is so accustomed to look for the marvellous wherever the cause does not strike upon him as forcibly and closely as the effect.*
* In the fourteenth century, a disease appeared in Europe
which induced those afflicted with it to leap and dance. It was
called St. Vitus's dance, from a firm-rooted belief that the shrine
of St. Vitus possessed the power of curing it ; and, solely from
the influence of this belief on the mind, many were cured. The
legend whence this belief arose, taught that St. Vitus, before he
bent his neck to the sword, at his martyrdom, prayed that the
Deity would protect from the dancing mania all who should
solemnize the day of his commemoration, and fast on its eve ;
whereupon a voice from heaven was heard saying, " Vitus, thy
prayer is accepted."
[The
88 INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION.
Animal magnetism, in which all the real phenomena
The cures effected by the Royal touch, and the money (716, see Excerpta Historica, p. 87, etc.) given to each person touched, were due solely to the influence of confidence operating as a powerful tonic on the animal S3*stem, labouring under the relaxa- tion on which scrofula chiefly depends : the anticipation also of benefit caused an increase of nervous energy equivalent to that effected by physical excitants. The celebrated Flamstead, the astronomer, when a lad of nineteen, went into Ireland to be touched by a celebrated empiric, named Greatracks, who cured his patients without medicines, "by the stroke of his hand." Flamstead says, " he was eye-witness of several cures," although he himself was not benefited. (Bailey's Life and Observations of Flamstead.) He awaited, but did not anticipate the result.
A more impudent quack than Greatracks has seldom appeared ; he flourished in the seventeenth century. The belief in his power general, from the most highly born and educated, to the most abject and illiterate mendicant, all sacrificed at the altar of Cre- dulity, and relied on the healing touch of Greatracks. In a letter to Lord Conway, who sent for him from Ireland on account of the health of Lady Conway, this prince of impostors thus expresses himself; — " The virtuosi have been daily with me since I writ to your honour last, and have given me large and full testimonials, and God has been pleased to do wonderful things in their sight, so that they are my hearty and good friends, and have stopped the mouth of the Court, where the sober party are now most of them believers, and my champions. The King's doctors, this day, (for the confirmation of their Majesties' belief) sent three out of the hospital to me, who came on crutches; but, blessed be God! they all went home well, to the admiration of all people, as well as the doctors. Sir Heneage Finch says, that I have made the greatest faction and distraction between clergy and laymen, that any one has these thousand years." Such was his boast; there is retribution in this world as well as in the next : the reputa- tion of Greatracks soon afterwards declined as suddenly as it had risen. [But
INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION. 89
are produced by an excited imagination, was first cried up by charlatans as a physical agent ; and has become in the
But we need not go to the seventeenth century for examples of the power of Imagination as a curative agent. In the early part of the present century, a Miss Fancourt was cured of a spine com- plaint, in answer to the prayers of a Mr. Greaves. She had been ill eight years, and during the last two years had been confined to her sofa. She was apparently cured ; she again walked ; and the only question was, how was the cure effected ? Dr. Jervis, a very sensible physician, remarks, " that her disease had probably been some time previously subdued, and only wanted an extraordinary stimulus to enable her to make use of her legs. Both my friends, Mr. Travers, and the late Mr. Parkinson, concurred in thinking that there had been nothing in the illness or the recovery but what might be accounted for by natural causes." Mr. Travers, in a letter on the subject, says — " Credulity, the foible of a weakened, though vivacious intellect, is the pioneer of an unqualified and overweening confidence ; and thus prepared, the patient is in the most hopeful state for the credit, as well as the craft, of the pre- tender." On the same principle are to be explained the cures performed by the metallic tractors ; mustard seed ; brandy and salt ; the prayers of Prince Hohenlohe ; the embrocations of St. John Long ; the miracle performed by Mesmerism on my talented friend Miss Martineau ; and a thousand cases in which hysteria played a notable part, and which only required full con- fidence in the prescriber to effect a complete cure.
The means employed as the remedial agents in these cases are very varied ; but they were all fully confided in by the patients ; and in that confidence lies the secret of their success. Music, as in the dancing mania, has often performed wonders. Democritus affirms that diseases are capable of being cured by the sound of a flute, when properly played. Asclepiades employed the trumpet to cure sciatica : its continued sound, he affirmed, makes the fibres of the nerves to palpitate, and the pain vanishes. Even the great Bacon believed in the power of charming away warts. — Ed.
90 INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION.
hands of fanatics and impostors one branch of modern Theurgy.*
" When the imagination of an invalid has been much struck by details of the efficacy of some remedy which is naturally inefficacious, it may in such a case become truly salutary. Thus, " an invalid may be relieved by magical ceremonies, if he be convinced beforehand that they will effect his cure."f Have not these words of an ancient physician been verified in the happy applications of animal magnetism, Perkinism, the sympathetic pow- der, and jugglings of the same kind, that both in ancient and modern times have been seen by turns to triumph or fall into contempt ? j
* The magnetic sleep, and the miraculous effects it produces, were predicted by the enthusiast Swedenborg, in the year 1763, when he said. " Man may be raised to the celestial light even in this world, if the bodily senses could be entombed in a lethargic slumber," &c. (Of Angelic Wisdom, p. 357.) This conclusion belongs to the >partizans of Swedenborg ; but they hastened to add, that we must not implicitly believe all that the somniloquists or somnambulists have stated, that all is not good that is revealed : they depend upon that verse of St. John's 1st Epistle, chap. iv. verse 1, "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God." They recommend, above all, no dépendance upon those somnambulists who would dispute with Swedenborg his office of messenger of God, or who would speak against his doctrine. (Daillant Latouche. Abrégé des Ouvrages de Swedenborg, pp. 55, 58.
f De Incantatione libellus (inter libros Galeno ascriptos), " Quando mens humana rem amat aliquam," etc.
X It would be well if they always fell into contempt ; but wherever ignorance and superstition enslave the mind, there credulity erects her temple. At so late a period as 1837, the Honourable Robert Curzon, jun., travelling in the East,
INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION. 91
The Imagination, although having so powerful an effect upon our bodily organs, is in its turn subjected to their deranging influence when disease has disturbed the harmony of their functions.
Four hundred years before the Christian sera, Carthage was a prey to one of those endemics which the ancients denominated Plagues: agitated by a frenetick transport, the effect of the disease, the greater part of the inhabit- ants flew to arms to repulse an imaginary enemy, who they believed had penetrated into the city.#
The shipwrecked mariners of the Medusa, when exhausted by fatigue, hunger, and affliction upon the raft to which they had been so cruelly abandoned, experienced ecstatic illusions, the charm of which contrasted fright -
arrived at Nagadi, and had a conference with the Bishop. In the midst of it, a tall figure, with a heavy chain tied to his legs, entered the apartment, waving a brazen censer in his hand, with which he made an attack upon the party, and was with some diffi- culty secured, and carried off. " He was the son of the Bishop, and, being a maniac, had been chained down before the altar of St. George, — a sovereign remedy in these cases ; only he pulled up the staples of his chain, and came away with the censer, before his cure was completed."11 Is it wonderful, indeed, that the decep- tions of the Asclepiades should have succeeded, when we observe Charlatanism flourishing and patronised by the aristocracy, and even by the educated and learned, in our own times. In the temples, during the influence of the Asclepiades in Greece, the patients slept on goat- skins ; and when they were supposed to be asleep, but known to be kept awake by the novelty of their situation, a priest, dressed as iEsculapius, accompanied by young girls, trained to represent the daughters of the God, entered and delivered a solemn medical opinion, which the result confirmed in proportion to the credulity and intellectual imbecility of the hearers. — Ed. * Diodod. Sic. lib. xv. cap. ix.
a Quarterly Review, vol. lxxvii. p. 53.
92 INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION.
fully with their desperate situation.* In these two instances, the moral disorder may have been augmented by sympathy and the propensity to imitation. But more re- cent and individual instances are not wanting. The mother of the Regent Duke of Orleans relates, in her correspond- ence, an anecdote of a lady of her acquaintance, which seems the height of absurdity, yet has nothing improbable in it if we look upon it as a vision produced, during the lying-in of a woman, by the delirium accomp anying the milk fever.f A young man, victim to bad habits, had fallen into a marasmus ;| he was tormented with phantoms, and complained that he heard the sentence of his eternal condemnation perpetually sounding in his ears. General Thiebault, a man equally distinguished by his mind and military talents, during the weakened state which followed an inflammatory disease, was attacked by visions, the more strange from the fact of his enjoying undiminished reason, and that none of his senses were altered. The fantastic objects, nevertheless, which annoyed him, and which he knew did not exist, struck so forcibly upon his sight, that it was as easy for him to enumerate and describe them as the real objects by which he was surrounded.!
* Relation du naufrage de la Méduse. 1st edition, pp. 72 — 73.
f Mémoires sur la Cour de Louis XIV, &c. edit. 1823, pp. 74—75.
X The patient was under the care of Dr. Marc, in 1843.
|| M. le Lieutenant- General Thiebault has permitted me to relate his case. Let us observe that similar hallucinations have been experienced by very important persons. The learned Gléditsch, three hours after noon, clearly saw in a corner of the Academy-hall, at Berlin, Maupertuis, who had died at Basle some time before. He attributed this vision to a momentary derange- ment of his organs ; but in speaking of it, he affirmed that the
INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION. 93
We shall be little astonished to see how the Thauma- turgists, in every country, debilitated the corporeal organs in order to rule the Imagination more surely. Mortifi- cations and fasts were an essential part of the ancient initiation, to which it was absolutely necessary to submit before receiving the answer of several oracles, and above all, of those which were revealed only in dreams.*
We cannot be ignorant how the disposition for, and liability to see phantoms, is increased by an irritation of the visual organs, caused by long vigils or by a steady contemplation of any luminous body, particularly when the mind is disordered or the body weakened. The principal trial to which the Sannyassi (meditative Hin- doos) are subjected, is that of looking fixedly at the sun. It is not long before they have visions, see sparks of fire, flaming globes, meteors ; the end of which is, not unfrequently, that they lose their sight, and even their reason, f
vision was as perfect as if Maupertius had been placed living before him.— (D. Thiebault. Recollections of a Residence at Berlin, vol. v. p. 21. 5th edition.) "The maternal grandfather of Bonnet, when in perfect health, independent of all exterior impressions saw the figures of men, birds, and boats produced, moving, growing, decreasing, and disappearing. His reason could not have been affected, as he was quite aware it was an illusion." — (Laplace, Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités, pp. 224 —226.)
* Before consulting the oracle of Amphiaraus, at Oropas in Bœotia, the votaries fasted a whole day, and received the answer in a dream. Philostrat. vit. Apollon, lib. n. cap. iv.
f Dubois. Mœurs et Institutions des Peuples de l'Inde, tome n. pp. 271 — 274. The Sannyasi are Brahmans of a very strict order, who
94 INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION.
To these powerful auxiliaries, the strength of which is increased by solitude and darkness, is added an intoxica- tion produced by the sacred food and drinks ; and thus, already a prey to beliefs, to fears, and to superstitious hopes, and given up to so many causes of excitement, how would it be possible for any man, even the greatest master of his reason, to defend his Imagination from the power of such superstitions ? And without the assist- ance of other artifices, would not the union of these means be sufficient to make a superstitious man, shut up in a cavern without an opening, such as has received the name of the Purgatory of St. Patrick, believe that he was in an immense place, surrounded by all those ap- paritions which the monks of Ireland had beforehand promised to his terrified imagination ?*
have renounced the society of wives and children, altogether for- saken the world, and adopted the vow of mendicity, to subsist solely upon alms. The duty of a member of this sect is to seek solitude ; to subdue every passion ; to shun the slightest approach to pleasure, or any earthly enjoyments ; and to concentrate his whole mind in meditation upon holy things, and, among others, the constant perusal of the Veda. The penances to which he is to subject himself are numerous and truly ridiculous. Thus — he is to slide backwards and forwards on the ground ; to stand a whole day on tiptoe ; to continue a whole day in motion, rising and sitting alternately ; to expose himself to hot fires in the warmest weather ; to look fixedly for hours upon the sun ; and to feed entirely on roots and fruits. Such are the rules imposed on a Sannyasi ; and such the idea of human perfection, which Super- stition has impressed on the minds of her Hindoo votaries. Under such discipline, in addition to that mentioned in the text, it is not surprising that visions should be seen and believed. — Ed.
* Gerard Boate. Natural History of Ireland, pp. 137 — 141, of the French translation. Twiss. Travels in Ireland, pp. 128 — 129.
INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION. 95
Instructed by observation of the intimate connexion between every part of our being, the ancients well knew that the Imagination could produce diseases apparently supernatural, which often defied the art, and always the precautions of the physician ; and that also, on the con- trary, it could effectually struggle against a really diseased state of the organs, with a success equal to that effected by physical remedies. They armed the Imagination against physical evils, and forced it to be productive of as much benefit as it sometimes was of evil.
During the dog-days in Egypt, an epidemic disease, which is attributed to the influence of the atmosphere, prevails. As a remedy for it, the priests were accustomed, after so- lemn ceremonies and sacrifices, to light numerous wood piles with fire taken from an altar dedicated to an ancient deified sage.* This proceeding was no doubt useful, as it increased the circulation of the air, and tended to purify it; but fire taken from the domestic hearth would have been as efficacious. In this instance, there- fore, they addressed themselves also to the Imagination. These religious mummeries, and the sacred fire, tended to increase the persuasion among the people, that a pro- tecting God would come to their relief. The Roman people were cut off in numbers by a pestilential disease, which would not yield to any known remedy: the Pontiffs, therefore, ordered, in the name of Heaven, a celebration of the public games and festivals.! This remedy, which appears so strange to us, was, neverthe-
* Aelian. Var. Hist, (quoted by Suidas) verb, évaveiv — Va%iv Tepoypafifiarels. t Valer. Maxim, lib. n. cap. iv. § iv'. a. u.c. 389.
96 INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION.
less, found so efficacious, that it was resorted to more than once. Let us suppose that the endemic disease* was of the nature of those pestiferous fevers, which often resulted in Italy, from the crowding together of a nume- rous population in confined dwellings ; or from privations and fatigue ; and also from variations of the temperature, to which the citizens were exposed during their military expeditions. Under such circumstances, a general terror would be spread ; it would freeze every soul, and thereby add doubly to the deadly power of the scourge. Were not the games which kept the population in the open air, and agreeably occupied the mind ; the festivals, or nume- rous sacrifices of animals, presenting means of substi- tuting a more substantial and wholesome food, to that provided by habitual parsimony; and the ceremonies which reassured the Imagination, and promised that the Gods would throw a compassionate glance on their obedient worshippers ; sufficient to combat the progress, and acce- lerate the disappearance of the malignant contagion. To prostrate the people before the altar, believing that they owed to the Gods their miraculous deliverance, was a course frequently resorted to ; and when cures were effected, it was indeed a miracle in the sense of the ancients ; an immediate, but assuredly not a supernatural benefit from the Gods.
We could recal to remembrance, without trouble, innu- merable examples of physical remedies employed to cure supernatural diseases, as far, at least, as we should con- tinue to translate into modern meaning the ancient ex-
* Endemic diseases are those that originate in some circum- stance connected with the locality in which they appear : they are not contagious. — En.
INFLUENCE OF IMAGINATION. 97
pressions. As every benefit was ascribed to the benevolence of the Gods, so were all evils supposed to emanate from their vengeance, or from the malevolence of evil genii. What ought we to recognise in the evils attributed to this latter cause ? Nervous infirmities, epilepsy, hysteria, the symptoms of which were developed, or at least increased, if not originated, by a disordered Imagination, Hellebore cured the daughters of Proteus of a madness with which the anger of the Gods had afflicted them. When the Samoyedes are by terror thrown into a paroxysm of frenzy which they regard as the effect of enchantment, and as the characteristic sign of sorcery, they are cured by having the hair of the rein-deer burnt under their nostrils.* The Hebrew exorcists ejected demons from the human body by the smell of the smoke of the burning Baaras plant. Aelian described this plant under the name Cynopastes ; and Josephus attributed to it the power of expelling demons and of curing epilepsy .f The mode of treating these maladies did not differ greatly from that now employed. Like the Hebrews, the Thaumaturgists of antiquity, the Samoyedes, and those magi who, two centuries ago, dared to oppose medical art by their pre- tended magical fascinations, % we also use fumigations and ammoniacal odours when fighting against diseases
* Wagner. Recollections of Russia, p. 207.
f Aelian. De Nat. Animal, lib. xiv. cap xxvu. One of the Sea Algse, which the same author compares to the Cynospastos (ibid. ibid. cap. xxiv.), contained a very strong poison. It was perhaps this last quality which induced the Thaumaturgists to reserve to themselves the exclusive possession of it.
I See the indication of this medicine in Fromann, De Fasci- natione. pp. 955—958.
VOL. II. H
98 INFLUENCE OF IMAGINATION.
of the nature of epilepsy, hysterics, hypochondriasm, and those mournful results of a disordered Imagination under which reason is prostrated. The apparent mira- cle would disappear, if we were to recal to mind that it was the custom of the ancients to personify the prin- ciples of good and evil.
MEDICTNE A PART OF THE OCCULT SCIENCE. 99