< Proofs of a Soul (continued from page 10-29) >
an apparition with absolute certainty is very great, and those who have considered all the facts in respect to haunted houses, and all the rest of the strange statements and doings, must allow. We cannot be too wary and circumspect, and should look more to psychology, physiology, and the facts of mesmerism as essential preliminary matters: merely heaping wonder upon wonder in any case will not explain laws or advance science.
Mr. St. George Mivart, a Roman Catholic, President of the Biological Section of the British Association, supposes “some unheard of essence infused in the organism of every living thing, determinant of its actions,” to which the writer of the Times' article says cui bono? Does such a theory serve any useful purpose in science as the supposed ether filling space and permeating all bodies, as the medium of light and heat does—for light and heat seem, as it were, to travel in each other’s embrace from the sun into all surrounding space; but the wonder is in the mind itself projecting, as it were, its sensible light to all the space without, and with the intuition of the sense of distance.
Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.
Night-Walkers in Brittany
In Brittany there is scarcely a rock, a fountain, a wood, or a cave, to which some tale of wonder or dread is not attached; every 'operation of nature the Bretons ascribe to miraculous interposition; and they people the air, the earth, and the waters with supernatural agents of all sorts. Miss Plumptre, in her pleasant book, mentions several of these spirits who “fly by night.”
Jean gant y Tan, “John and his fire,” is a demon who goes about in the night with a candle upon each finger, which he constantly twirls round very fast— to what purpose, save that of frightening honest people whose track he may cross, does not appear.
The Buguel-Nos is a beneficent spirit of gigantic stature, who wears a long white cloak, and is only to be seen between midnight and two in the morning. He defends the people against the devil by wrapping his cloak round them; and while they are thus protected they hear the infernal chariot whirling past, with a frightful noise, the charioteer making hideous cries and howlings: it may be traced in the air for a long time after by the trail of lurid light which it leaves behind it. It is a pity that the night-world should only have two hours’ service of this benignant demon, even though he may now and then baulk the devil of his due.
Another, but utterly purposeless wanderer of the night, apparently not thought of consequence enough to be christened, is a spectre in white carrying a lantern; he appears at first as a mere child, but as you look at him he waxes in stature every moment, until he becomes of gigantic size, and then, having done his worst, he vanishes. This spirit, however, never even ventures to show his ineffectual bulk to persons who carry a lantern.
The Cariguel Ancou, or “Chariot of Death,” is a terrible apparition, covered with a white sheet, and driven by skeletons; and the noise of the wheels is always heard in the street passing the door of a house where any person is dying. There are a set of ghostly washerwomen, called Ar cannerez nos, or “nocturnal singers,” who wash their linen always by night, singing old songs and tales all the time. They solicit the help of passers-by to wring out the linen. If this help be given awkwardly they break the helper’s arm; if it be refused, they pull the cautious or churlish passenger into the stream and drown him.
In the district of Carhaix there is a mountain called St. Michael, whither it is believed all demons cast out from the bodies of men are banished. If any one sets his foot by night within the circle they inhabit he begins to run, and will never be able to cease all the rest of the night; nobody, therefore, visits this mountain after dark,
A demon, or spirit of some kind, called the Teusarpouliet, often presents himself to the people under the form of a cow, a dog, a cat, or some other domestic animal; and he will sometimes, in his assumed form, do all the work of the house—like the Scotch “brownie.”—Diprose’s Superstitious Omens.
A Few Questions
Sir,—In Major Carpenter’s interesting account of a test seanee held with Mr. Haxby as medium, on the 7th August, it was observed that during the time the manifestations were occurring in the stance-room “Joey” repeatedly answered questions through his medium, who at the time was handcuffed and tied on abed at the further end of the adjoining room. Can any of your readers inform me whether it be possible for a ventriloquist—in one room and in the dark—to deceive the sitters, by making his voice sound as if proceeding from a distant part of another room?
Is it not remarkable that so many mediums, in addition to their alleged wonderful powers of conjuring, should also be gif led with that of “ventriloquism?” Is it a fact that ventriloquism is so common, that the majority of physical mediums are capable of producing by its means what is called “the direct voice?” And further, can any one tell me whether a female ventriloquist may not, at least, be regarded as a vara acis?
129, Gower-street.
Curiosities in Japanese Temples
Sir,—Some of your readers who have not chanced to have seen the books to which I refer, may like to have their attention drawn to the fact that in the inner sanctuary of the Japanese temples Mr. Stevenson found burnished mirrors and the mysterious Gohei paper, both, he says, of Shinto origin. And Mrs. Brassey, in her account of Japan, tells of the looking glass and crystals found in the Shinto temples; adding, “The looking glass is intended to remind believers that the Supreme Being can see their innermost thoughts as clearly as they can perceive their own reflection, while the crystal ball is an emblem of purity.”— Voyage of the Sunbeam, page 330.
This exoteric reason for their use she accepts with apparent ignorance of the magical properties of crystals and some mirrors.
Again, page 312, she says, when describing the inner shrine, or holy of holies in the Shinto temples: “It generally contains, not an image, but a tablet, or what the Japanese call a Gohei, or piece of paper cut so that it hangs down in folds on either side” . . . “The.ee Goheis are so common in Japan, and occupy so important a place in all their temples, that I had a great desire to know what they originally meant, but, as on many questions of this kind, could get no, information , the only suggestion that presented itself to me was that it might be some form of the book, for the book was a very precious thing in past time.”
To those who have read Psychography; or, Spirit Writing, it will readily occur that such papers may be placed in the temples to receive written communications from spirits—a meaning that the presiding priests would be very unlikely to explain.
The Cottage, Cullompton.
Editor's notes
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 367, September 5, 1879, p. 118