Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men Part 3

A story is told of t.i.tus by the rabbis: he heard a gnawing sound at his brain; it caused him great pain. He heard a blacksmith hammering at his anvil, and the gnawing ceased. The blacksmith was paid to go on hammering in t.i.tus' neighbourhood. At the end of a few days the "animal" that gnawed at his brain got indifferent to the hammering, went on gnawing, and t.i.tus died. His brain was opened, and an animal as big as a sparrow with a beak of iron was found in it. The truth of this story would be, that some magicians, not especially adroit hypnotists, hammered at t.i.tus'

tympanum. His nerves, tried by climatic fever--a great facilitator of hypnotism--and by debauchery, gave way, and Jerusalem was avenged.

The writer once approached a very eminent Catholic cleric on the subject, hoping that some Freemason who had been victimised by tricks played by hypnotists in Italy might have relieved his conscience to the priests; the writer had been given one clue in the following way.

Two English Freemasons in the writer's presence had briefly mentioned mesmerism in Italian lodges. One asking a question as to this being true, the other, who objected to his son becoming a Freemason early, turned the question off; it is possible that he suspected it was the case, but preferred holding his tongue.

Now as these scoundrel hypnotists have, unseen but heard, approached three or four people to the writer's knowledge, under the pretence of being connected with Freemasonry, it is very possible that they may have induced some of their victims to enter a lodge, and then or before tricked them in different ways. Indeed, one of the people attacked unsuccessfully had, to the writer's knowledge, an absurd idea of the exclusiveness of Freemasonry, since he objected to the Prince of Wales making over a poor Freemason's brief (if that be the proper word to use) for inquiry as to his circ.u.mstances to gentlemen who were not Freemasons.

The brief of course contained only the man's name, and a few ornamental figures: the man was dead and his widow wanted help. It is to be wished that some scientific Freemason would study the matter; he would see that the secrecy of Freemasonry, however harmless and venial, affords cover for blackguard hypnotists of this particular and doubtless rare kind.

This secrecy is of course entirely conventional, and could doubtless be altered. As elsewhere, the people who take an interest in it are not always people with broad and scientific minds, and at the close of the eighteenth century Cagliostro misused it, it is said, for his own purposes.

The writer regrets that a want of scientific study of the subject (it must be remembered that books on hypnotism were rare, and research backward eleven years ago) prevented him from introducing the subject properly to the wise and good Lord Carnarvon. It must be borne in mind that for audible thought-transfers to lead not only to apparent intercourse--the answers being put into the recipient's mouth, as in Mrs.

G.o.dfrey's case--a pretence of something like Freemasonry is needed.

In "Piccadilly" Oliphant describes a cross appearing to the hero, and the words "live the life" being whispered to him. He then abandons the young woman he loves to his friend. Such a course of conduct would certainly be suggested by hypnotists to make a capable man their plaything and tool as was the case with Oliphant. Obviously a man could live a more beneficial life with a marriage of mutual affection, whilst a poor young woman would, if she married otherwise, be sure to be a sufferer. Perhaps this fragment was historical. It would have made the Oliphants' disaster easier.

A word, a vision, and the mischief is done. Perhaps poor Captain Lestrange was forced into his unhappy marriage by a similar trick.

The love of power and of bullying is so great, perhaps especially with British and Germans, that this tyranny is not wonderful; were there not an efficient police the Mohawks would soon revive; the infamous cruelty of some brutes is only known to a few doctors. Envy, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness are shown in these attacks upon people, whose lives were useful and whose characters were high. Possibly the hope of profit may be sometimes present;--when this is past and the scoundrels have had their triumph, their persecution is continued, unprofitable though it be; partly to render pursuit more difficult, partly maybe for practice, partly because they have acquired a horrible habit which they cannot get rid of. Du Potet's feeling of pride becomes in the bosom of a blackguard wholly evil. Much interest has been given to Home's feats: to his floating outside his window and other extraordinary performances. His first feat, be it remembered, was to make a rapping stool leap up when it had a Bible on it, and leap all the harder. Was not this mere tricking action on the observer's eye and ear? This was closely paralleled by the rascals about B----, who made a "work-table, a box on long slender legs,"

emit a loud bang. Home might have done this alone to his aunt, but it possibly was done by a combination of people at B----.

The fact that Home, at least on one occasion, could not do anything when Houdin was near, seems to show that Home relied on an accomplice whom he was unable to conceal from Houdin, and who doubtless was a hypnotist also.

It is a fortunate thing that "spiritualism" and its wonders have invited scientific study. The tendency to become spiritists is, of course, furthered in many by an uncomfortable belief that without spiritualism a future life is not insured; only the coming again to them of the spirits of the dead a.s.sures them that they rise again.

Of course all the heathen ideas of a resurrection were founded on the keen recollection of themselves the defunct have inspired. Our belief in the Christian revelations is founded on its ethical system, part of which, however, is of course for missionary effort only, but which is the more remarkably connected with previous revelations, not so distinctly reported, to the Jews, and with the history of the world at large.

Of course spiritual impressions are of no more value than the stigmata on hysterical girls, in whom the emotional element was over developed, and the religious understanding too little developed. The reversion to ancestor wors.h.i.+p in spiritism seems more clear, and dinners at Kensal Green with five s.h.i.+llings tomb money, after the system of some low-caste Indian tribes, should be inst.i.tuted by the spiritists. But the Chinaman also conciliates other spirits--those of friends or patrons or the great men of past generations; why do not the spiritualists sacrifice gold leaf and roast pork like the inhabitants of the Far East?

The Catholic Church has exorcised spirits and put them in their place as improper and disturbing elements. It thereby told its members that spirits were conjurable: of course really the minds of the members were strengthened, but the toleration of the idea of spirits, whether lazy and trifling, pernicious or beneficial, is of course wrong. However, as they were considered the servants of sorcerers, the idea was in some respects sufficiently accurate.

The Lutheran Church in Denmark, in the last century, had many famous exercisers who banned ghosts into Schleswig-Holstein.

One hypnotiser against another, the battle-field a stupid peasant. M.

Flammarion's book, just published (July 1900), contains an instance or two of French peasants bewitching one another. The cure for this witchcraft is found in science, the criminal law, and the mutual kindness that, derived from Christianity, though often promoted by men whom we can only call G.o.d-fearing unbelievers, has grown so much in this century, and more elsewhere even than in Britain. Thousands of poor people perished in the days of old, guiltless victims, whilst some scoundrelly hypnotists went free. In modern times some poor people, bothered by hypnotists, have been sent to lunatic asylums and have fallen victims of the greed, cruelty, and neglect that so often prevail there. One must give Dr.

Savage his due, that he describes a case in his book on insanity where a lady hearing voices (cheating hypnotic voices, perhaps), and believing herself insulted, left one lodging after another perfectly quietly, and he admits that this case was not suitable for a lunatic asylum.

The "spirits" of spiritists are, of course, not impressive, if their somewhat startling amount of information be excepted. The language used by George Pelham is pure twaddle. One member of the society seems to have been hypnotised, and the rest studied by the Piper gang through him.

If all a man feels, sees, and hears be noted, the information gathered, coming from a stranger, will be startling to people who belong to his circle of friends.

This information was imparted to Mrs. Piper, where it had not been collected by her. All she saw was seen by her accomplices, who advised her accordingly. They were doubtless too busy to study the eminent statesman whom she told that he had money transactions with a person called George.[28]

[Footnote 28: Miss Goodrich Freer's "Essays," p. 119.]

Study and inquiry should eradicate the superst.i.tion and the fraud called spiritism, and people should be protected against a most dangerous and cowardly form of crime--criminal hypnotism. It enfeebles the mind; and murder is hardly more serious to a man than a marriage that embitters his life, or the loss of a career that is the moral stay of his existence.

The knowledge that such a thing exists would, if it induced one per cent, more care, save many lives. Apparitions of beneficent spirits can be easily accounted for. They are cases of automatic visualisation. Thus the children mentioned in the late Mr. Spurgeon's Life, who went down an underground pa.s.sage and saw a vision of their dead mother, who stopped them from falling into a well, felt as other children would feel, that they must think of the one person who is always ready to preserve her little children from terror and pain; and thinking of her, they visualised her.

Energy and intelligence are the worst enemies of criminal hypnotism, as they are of burglary, but social organisation alone can combat crime.

To note some particulars of the haunting of B---- besides those already mentioned. The butler, Sanders, lived with the H. family at B---- the year before Miss Freer garrisoned the house. Not one of the people who were at B---- in 1896 were there with Miss Freer. This bars one type of fraud being alleged. Sanders, besides hearing thumping, groans, and the rustling of a lady's dress, had his bedclothes lifted up and let fall again--"first at the foot of my bed, but gradually coming towards the head." He held the clothes round his neck with his hands, but they were "gently lifted in spite of my efforts to hold them."

This simply means that he had cramps, resulting from the effect of hypnotism on the muscles of his legs. The writer believes that the force always acts from the feet, or rather one foot, upwards; obviously a man sitting or standing up must be approached that way, and habit causes the electric stream to flow in that direction. But this cramp is not felt so keenly as is the case when cramp arises from a constrained position. The consequence is that the kicks given to relieve it are not so violent and decisive. They are repeated automatically, until the bedclothes fly up finally near the head, as is described. The intervals between the flights of the clothes seem shorter than they are; this is again due to hypnotic influence, as in spiritistic performances and in conjuring, where, as M. Binet has recently remarked, a little hypnotism always comes in.

Thus in Mr. Austin Podmore's account of Mr. Davey's seance, his attention was called away for two or three minutes without his noting it. We may take it for granted that the kickings up of the bedclothes during which Sanders became weak and faint, lasted ten minutes or more. "Being fanned as though some bird were flying round my head," arose from his own breath after his efforts; he felt it the more as he had got warm.[29] The sound of breathing may have been of his own, but is not unlikely to have been the transferred sound of the breathing of one of two people hypnotising him. The feeling of the bed being carried round (or moved) towards the window is a feeling of reaction: a man sticks his back against the bed to resist the material and mental pressure, and the relief felt as the effort ceases gives him the impression that the bed has been swung towards the window, towards which he naturally looks, since the slight draught refreshes him and diverts the attack. That he actually felt some one making pa.s.ses over him is not an error; he had two antagonists; one of whom, like the young engineer Cleave,[30] was hypnotised by the other, both willing the hypnotism of Sanders.

[Footnote 29: "Alleged Haunting," p. 46.]

[Footnote 30: "Osgood Mason," p. 234.]

He felt the pa.s.ses the stronger antagonist was making over the other. If one of the two people can obtain return messages like Mr. G.o.dfrey, intimate knowledge of his victim's doings might soon be obtained. A ghost appeared to young H. in the shape of a veiled lady; perhaps the mist round her was taken for a veil. But to return to the action of two hypnotists on one person, it may be noted that the sound like the giving of a tin box heard by Miss Moore, Miss Freer, and Miss Langton,[31] and afterwards like the lid of a coalscuttle caught by a dress by Mrs.

M.,[32] was the sound of a gong doubtless used to stimulate the hypnotised partner in the blackguard couple. Such a sound done with a little spring gong, or with a larger one, has been heard by a victim.

[Footnote 31: "Haunting of B---- House," p. 155.]

[Footnote 32: "Haunting of B---- House," p. 173.]

By such experience, too, the monotonous reading can be explained; it was the commencement by less powerful hypnotists of a supporting attack: the words would become audible, distinguishable, and noticeable later. This might ensue after the victim was more deeply hypnotised.

Probably the very words which were to be used later were used then, a sort of sub-conscious memory being created.

Apparitions of a misty nature are described by Podmore in his chapter on "Haunted Houses."[33] Miss Langton saw a misty phantom, and _Lizzie_ the housemaid saw a cloud and afterwards got a cramp, less persistent than the butler's, as she began to scream.[34] The upper housemaid saw a woman whose legs she did not notice,[35] as was the case with Mr. G.o.dfrey's friend to whom he appeared hypnotically.

[Footnote 33: "Studies," pp. 315, 326.]

[Footnote 34: "Haunting of B---- House," p. 167.]

[Footnote 35: _Ibid_., pp. 205, 207.]

The fact that the dog that appeared to Miss Freer was a spaniel like Major S.'s, shows familiarity with the house on the part of the gang.

That they moved about early near the house is shown by Mr. C. hearing the caw of the rooks at 5.35 on March 6; they would not start cawing so early unless disturbed. There is thus abundant evidence (1) that rascals were at work; (2) accounting for certain of the phenomena observed; (3) pointing out their resemblance to cases of experimental hallucinations or thought transfer; (4) that such hypnotic operations could be traced by due vigilance. No. 2 is based in part on the writer's experience.

If the roads and neighbourhood had been patrolled, and exposure to possible hypnotists avoided, the phenomena would have ceased. The gentleman who wrote to the _Times_ made a point or two that were too petty to notice, and was probably disagreeable to Miss Freer, but detective work would have been useful. The gentleman's connection with a cla.s.s of men, the mad doctors whom the late Sir William Gull so rightly despised, and whose observations have been so unscientific, may perhaps have unduly prejudiced Miss Freer against him. Yet people have listened to a Maudsley against an Esher, and gone to the other extreme. Perhaps Miss Freer will reconsider her opinion, that hypnotism is for doctors only to study.

To wind up with a statement of what the writer believes to have been the object of the rascals about B----; ordinary thought-transfer probably precedes audible speech by hypnotic influence.

The many people who hear their names called, and find that no death or other striking occurrence coincides in time with this, are perhaps being experimented on by hypnotists, who somehow or other, perhaps by community of feeling, have hit upon the precise moment of a state of subconscious expectation that makes transfer of an actual word easier.

Of course people, friends or others, about the victim are an antidote to influences. The inevitable tendency of pious natures, sensitive people who are indispensable to society, is to self-blame. In misfortune they would always blame themselves as sinners who deserved punishment, probably from having paid previously an undeserved attention to the censorious. Their frame of mind is very contrary to the gospel teaching, and to science; but the division of labour is moral as well as material; one man takes the kicks undeservedly, another the halfpence undeservedly.

These gentle people can thus be driven into apparently insane acts, if they have fools about them.

The fact of the name Ishbel being transferred to the inquirers a.s.sembled at Ballechin, may indicate whose was the spirit that should profess to preach to victims. Women are often said to be worse, if evil, than men, and they play this ugly role better.

That rain interrupted the phenomena is another point against the partisans of the supernatural. When after rain the nun was surprised and chased by Miss Freer, it would seem that she intended mischief to some other member of the garrison at B----, or she would have been _en rapport_ with Miss Freer, and aware that she was nearing her.

The p.r.o.nunciation of the names Ishbel and Margaret only indicate a non-Highlander being implicated, but it seems possible that the latter name, for which there was no particular cause, may have been a punning appellation. Mar-garret, as the grey woman, attacked the servants in the attics. Such a joke is characteristic of such villains, and shows that they are tolerably educated people. Their avoiding Mr. Z. may indicate that they may have been brought in contact with him, in the fifty different ways that an editor may have seen people--their contributing to the press is not impossible. They must have some money too. The writer believes that physiology and many other branches of science, notably social, will be benefited by studying this case.

Lord Bute, Miss Freer, Colonel Taylor, and other members of the "garrison," deserve the grat.i.tude of society. May inquirers never rest until the subject, not too difficult a one in the age of electricians and physiologists, has been fairly cleared up.