The Making of Religion Part 6

Instances tending to raise a presumption in favour of M. Richet's idea may now be sought in savage and civilised life.

[Footnote 1: _Primitive Culture,_ i. 9, 10.]

[Footnote 2: _Origin of Ranks._]

[Footnote 3: I may be permitted to refer to 'Reply to Objections' in the appendix to my _Myth, Ritual, and Religion,_ vol. ii.]

[Footnote 4: Spencer, _Ecclesiastical Inst.i.tutions_, pp. 672, 673.]

[Footnote 5: _Primitive Culture_, i. 417-425. Cf. however _Princip. Of Sociol._, p. 304.]

[Footnote 6: Op. cit. i. 423, 424.]

[Footnote 7: Published for the Berlin Society of Experimental Psychology, Gunther, Leipzig, 1890.]

[Footnote 8: _Ecclesiastical Inst.i.tutions_, 837-839.]

[Footnote 9: _Primitive Culture_, i. 421, chapter xi.]

[Footnote 10: This theory is what Mr. Spencer calls 'Animism,' and does not believe in. What Mr. Tylor calls 'Animism' Mr. Spencer believes in, but he calls it the 'Ghost Theory.']

[Footnote 11: _Primitive Culture_, i. 428.]

[Footnote 12: Howitt, _Journal of Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, xiii.

191-195.]

[Footnote 13: The curious may consult, for savage words for 'dreams,' Mr.

Scott's _Dictionary of the Mang'anja Language_, s.v. 'Lots,' or any glossary of any savage language.]

[Footnote 14: _Prim. Cult._ i. 429.]

[Footnote 15: _Prim. Cult._ i. 428.]

[Footnote 16: Ibid. i. 285.]

[Footnote 17: Ibid. i. 285, 286.]

[Footnote 18: _Primitive Culture_, i. 446.]

[Footnote 19: See, however, Dr. Von Schrenck-Notzing, _Die Beobachtung narcolischer Mittel fur den Hypnotismus_, and S.P.R. _Proceedings_, x.

292-899.]

[Footnote 20: _Primitive Culture_, i. 306-316.]

[Footnote 21: i. 315.]

[Footnote 22: _Phil. des Geistes_, pp. 406, 408.]

[Footnote 23: See also Mr. A.J. Balfour's Presidential Address to the Society for Psychical Research, _Proceedings_, vol. x. See, too, Taine, _De l'Intelligence_, i. 78, 106, 139.]

[Footnote 24: Tanner's _Narrative_, New York, 1830.]

[Footnote 25: _Primitive Culture_, i. 143.]

[Footnote 26: As 'spiritualism' is often used in opposition to 'materialism,' and with no reference to rapping 'spirits,' the modern belief in that cla.s.s of intelligences may here be called spiritism.]

[Footnote 27: _The Will to Believe_, preface, p. xiv.]

[Footnote 28: _Primitive Culture_, i. 432,433. Citing Oviedo, _Hist. De Nicaragua,_ pp. 21-51.]

[Footnote 29: _Primitive Culture_, i. 440. Citing Stilling after Dale Owen, and quoting Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace's _Scientific Aspect of the Supernatural_, p. 43. Mr. Tylor also adds folk-lore practices of ghost-seeing, as on St. John's Eve. St. Mark's Eve, too, is in point, as far as folk-lore goes.]

[Footnote 30: _Proceedings_, S.P.R. v. 167.]

IV

'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE'

'To open the Gates of Distance' is the poetical Zulu phrase for what is called clairvoyance, or _vue a distance_. This, if it exists, is the result of a faculty of undetermined nature, whereby knowledge of remote events may be acquired, not through normal channels of sense. As the Zulus say: '_Isiyezi_ is a state in which a man becomes slightly insensible. He is awake, but still sees things which he would not see if he were not in a state of ecstasy (_nasiyesi_).'[1] The Zulu description of _isiyezi_ includes what is technically styled 'dissociation.' No psychologist or pathologist will deny that visions of an hallucinatory sort may occur in dissociated states, say in the _pet.i.t mal_ of epilepsy. The question, however, is whether any such visions convey actual information not otherwise to be acquired, beyond the reach of chance coincidence to explain.

A Scottish example, from the records of a court of law, exactly ill.u.s.trates the Zulu theory. At the moment when the husband of Jonka Dyneis was in danger six miles from her house in his boat, Jonka 'was found, and seen standing at her own house wall in a trance, and being taken, she could not give answer, but stood as bereft of her senses, and when she was asked why she was so moved, she answered, "If our boat be not lost, she was in great hazard."' (October 2, 1616.)[2]

The belief in opening the Gates of Distance is, of course, very widely diffused. The gift is attributed to Apollonius of Tyana, to Plotinus, to many Saints, to Catherine de' Medici, to the Rev. Mr. Peden,[3] and to Jeanne d'Arc, while the faculty is the stock in trade of savage seers in all regions.[4]

The question, however, on which Mr. Tylor does not touch, is, _Are any of the stories true?_ If so, of course they would confirm in the mind of the savage his theory of the wandering soul. Now, to find anything like attested cases of successful clairvoyance among savages is a difficult task. White men either scout the idea, or are afraid of seeming superst.i.tious if they give examples, or, if they do give examples, are accused of having sunk to the degraded level of Zulus or Red Indians. Even where travellers, like Scheffer, have told about their own experiences, the narratives are omitted by modern writers on savage divination.[5] We must therefore make our own researches, and it is to be noted that the stories of successful savage clairvoyance are given as ill.u.s.trations merely, not as evidence to facts, for we cannot cross-examine the witnesses.

Mr. Tylor dismisses the topic in a manner rather cavalier:

'Without discussing on their merits the accounts of what is called "second sight,"[6] it may be pointed out that they are related among savage tribes, as when Captain Jonathan Carver obtained from a Cree medicine-man a true prophecy of the arrival of a canoe with news next day at noon; or when Mr. J. Mason Brown, travelling with two _voyageurs_ on the Copper Mine River, was met by Indians of the very band he was seeking, these having been sent by their medicine-man, who, on enquiry, stated that "he saw them coming, and heard them talk on their journey."'[7]

Now, in our opinion, the 'merits' of stories of second sight need discussion, because they may, if well attested, raise a presumption that the savage's theory has a better foundation than Mr. Tylor supposes. Oddly enough, though Mr. Tylor does not say so, Dr. Brinton (from whom he borrows his two anecdotes) is more or less of our opinion.

'There are,' says Dr. Brinton, 'statements supported by unquestionable testimony, which ought not to be pa.s.sed over in silence, and yet I cannot but approach them with hesitation. They are so revolting to the laws of exact science, so alien, I had almost said, to the experience of our lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences only ignored and put aside without serious consideration?'

That is exactly what we complain of; the alleged facts are 'put aside without serious consideration.'

We, at least, are not slaves to the idea that 'the laws of exact science'

must be the only laws at work in the world. Science, however exact, does not pretend to have discovered all 'laws.'

To return to actual examples of the alleged supernormal acquisition of knowledge by savages: Dr. Brinton gives an example from Charlevoix and General Mason Brown's anecdote.[8] In General Mason Brown's instance the medicine-man, at a great distance, bade his emissaries 'seek three whites, whose horses, arms, attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, which description was repeated to General Brown by the warriors _before they saw his two companions.'_ General Brown a.s.sured Dr. Brinton of 'the accuracy of this in every particular.' Mr. Tylor has certainly not improved the story in his condensed version. Dr. Brinton refers to 'many'

tales such as these, and some will be found in 'Among the Zulus,' by Mr.

David Leslie (1875).

Mr. Leslie was a Scottish sportsman, brought up from boyhood in familiarity with the Zulus. His knowledge of their language and customs was minute, and his book, privately printed, contains much interesting matter. He writes:

'I was obliged to proceed to the Zulu country to meet my Kaffir elephant-hunters, the time for their return having arrived. They were hunting in a very unhealthy country, and I had agreed to wait for them on the North-East border, the nearest point I could go to with safety.