Cock Lane and Common-Sense Part 20

{167} Praep. Evang., v. ix. 4.

{170a} Rudolfi Fuldensis, Annal., 858, in Pertz, i. 372. See Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Engl. transl., p. 514.

{170b} Pseudo-Clemens, Homil., ii. 32, 638. In Mr. Myers's Cla.s.sical Essays, p. 66.

{178} Avignon, 1751.

{183} Compare the case of John Beaumont, F.R.S., in his Treatise of Spirits (1705).

{186} Proceedings S. P. R., viii. 151-189.

{189} Mrs. Ricketts was a sister of Lord St. Vincent, who tried, in vain, to discover the cause of the disturbances. Scott says (Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 360): 'Who has heard or seen an authentic account from Lord St. Vincent?' There is a full account in the Journal of the S. P. R. It appeared much too late for Sir Walter Scott also complains of lack of details for the Wynyard story. They are now accessible. People were, in his time, afraid to make their experiences public.

{190} The story is told by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, in his Introduction to Law's Memorialls, p. xci. Sharpe cites no source of the tradition.

{191} We are not discussing Dreams, which are many, but waking hallucinations, which are, relatively rare, and are remembered, unlike Dreams, whether they are coincidental or not.

{192} Gurney, op. cit., p. 187.

{193a} The writer knows a case in which a gentleman, who had gone to bed about eleven p.m., in Scotland, was roused by hearing his own name loudly called. He searched his room in vain. His brother died suddenly, at the hour when he heard the voice, in Canada. But the difference of time proves that the voice was heard several hours _before_ the death. Here, then, is a chance coincidence, which looked very like a case of Telepathy. Another will be found in Mr.

Dale Owen's Debatable Land, p. 364. A gentleman died 'after breakfast' in Rhenish Prussia, and appeared, before noon, in New York. Thus he appeared hours after he died.

{193b} Polack, New Zealand, i. 269.

{194a} Proceedings S. P. R., xv. 10.

{194b} The writer has known a case in which a collector of these statistics, disdained non-coincidental hallucinations as 'of no use'

{195} Proceedings S. P. R., xv. 7.

{196} Animal Magnetism, pp. 61-64, 1887.

{199} The Psychical Society has published the writer's encounter with Professor Conington, at Oxford, in 1869, when the professor was lying within one or two days of his death at Boston, a circ.u.mstance wholly unknown to the percipient. But no jury would accept this as anything but a case of mistaken ident.i.ty, natural in a short-sighted man's vague experiences. Mr. Conington was not a man easily to be mistaken for another, nor were many men likely to be mistaken for Mr. Conington. Yet this is what must have occurred. There was no conceivable reason why the professor should 'telepathically'

communicate with the percipient, who had never exchanged a word with him, except in an examination.

{205} Proceedings of Society for Psychical Research, viii. 111.

{206} Proceedings of Society for Psychical Research, xiv. 442.

{207a} Modern Spirit Manifestations. By Adin Ballou. Liverpool, 1853.

{207b} Proceedings of Society for Psychical Research, xiv. 469.

{209} Edinburgh, 1827, vol. i. p. x.x.xii.

{214} In the author's case the hypnagogic phantasms seem to be created out of the floating spots of light which remain when the eyes are shut. Some crystal-gazers find that similar points de repere in the gla.s.s, are the starting-points of pictures in the crystal. Others cannot trace any such connection.

{215} Compare Blackwood, August, 1831, in Noctes Ambrosianae.

{216a} Paus., ii. 24, I.

{216b} Bouche Leclercq, i. 339.

{223} The accomplished scryer can see as well in a crystal ringstone, or in a gla.s.s of water, as in a big crystal ball. The latter may really be dangerous, if left on a cloth in the sun it may set the cloth on fire.

{224} Animal Magnetism, second edition, p. 135.

{228} Thus an educated gentleman, a Highlander, tells the author that he once saw a light of this kind 'not a meteor,' pa.s.sing in air along a road where a funeral went soon afterwards. His companions could see nothing, but one of them said: 'It will be a death- candle'. It seems to have been hallucinatory, otherwise all would have shared the experience.

{231a} Darker Superst.i.tions of Scotland, p. 481, Edinburgh, 1834.

{231b} Op. cit., p. 473.

{232a} Op. cit., p. 470

{232b} It is, perhaps, needless to add that the unhappy patients were executed.

{232c} Miscellanies, 1857, p. 184.

{233a} Wodrow, i. 44.

{233b} Aulus Gellius, xv. 18. Dio Ca.s.sius, lib. lxvii. Crespet, De la Hayne de Diable, cited by Dalyell.

{234} Miscellanies, 177.

{235} A copy presented by Scott to Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck is in the author's possession; it bears Scott's autograph.

{237} Information from Mr. Mackay, Craigmonie.

{238} 2 Kings, v. 26.

{244} i. 259. Longmans, London, 1811.

{245} Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 143.

{246} This belief is not confined to the Highlands. Mr. Podmore quotes Ghost 636 in the Psychical Society's collections: 'The narrator's mother is said to have seen the figure of a man'. The father saw nothing till his wife laid her hand on his shoulder, when he exclaimed, 'I see him now' (S. P. R., Nov., 1889, p. 247).

{250} 'Spectral evidence' was common in witch trials. Wierus (b.

1515) mentions a woman who confessed that she had been at a witch's covin, or 'sabbath,' when her body was in bed with her husband. If there was any confirmatory testimony, if any one chose to say that he saw her at the 'sabbath,' that was 'spectral evidence'. This kind of testimony made it vain for a witch to take Mr. Weller's advice, and plead 'a halibi,' but even Cotton Mather admits that 'spectral evidence' is inconclusive.

{253} Papon. Arrets., xx. 5, 9. Charondas, Lib. viii. Resp. 77.

Covarruvias, iv. 6. Mornac, s. v., Habitations, 27 ff., Locat. and Conduct. Other doctors do not deny hauntings, but allege that a brave man should disregard them, and that they do not fulfil he legal condition, Metus cadens in constantem virim. These doctors may never have seen a ghost, or may have been unusually courageous.

They held that a man might get accustomed to the annoyances of bogles, s'apprivoiser avec cette frayeur, like the Procter family at Willington.

{259} Miscellanies, p. 94, London, 1857.

{262} Hibbert, Philosophy of Apparitions, second edition, p. 224.

Hibbert finds Graime guilty, but only because he knew where the body lay.