Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death Part 37

"The problem was thus at last solved. I stated in the preface that I had unfortunately discovered too late that the two fragments belonged together, made the corresponding changes in the Table of Contents, pp. 50 and 52, and, it being not possible to transpose the fragments, as the plates were already made, I put in each plate a brief reference to the other. (Cf. Hilprecht, 'The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania,' Series A, Cuneiform Texts, Vol. I., Part I, 'Old Babylonian Inscriptions, chiefly from Nippur.')

"H. V. HILPRECHT."

Upon the priest's statement that the fragments were those of a votive cylinder, Professor Hilprecht makes the following comment:--

"There are not many of these votive cylinders. I had seen, all told, up to that evening, not more than two. They very much resemble the so-called seal cylinders, but usually have no pictorial representations upon them, and the inscription is not reversed, not being intended for use in sealing, but is written as it is read."

The following transliteration of the inscription, in the Sumerian language, will serve to give those of us who are unlearned in cuneiform languages an idea of the material which suggested the dream. The straight vertical lines represent the cuts by which the stone-cutter divided the original cylinder into three sections. The bracketed words are entirely lost, and have been supplied by a.n.a.logy from the many similar inscriptions.

Line 1. Dingir N inib du (mu) To the G.o.d Ninib, child " 2. dingir En- (lil) of the G.o.d Bel " 3. luga l-a-ni (ir) his lord " 4. Ku-r (i- galzu) Kurigalzu " 5. pa- (tesi dingir Enlil) pontifex of the G.o.d Bel " 6. (in- na- ba) has presented it.

I translate also the following statement which Mrs. Hilprecht kindly made at my request.

"I was awakened from sleep by a sigh, immediately thereafter heard a spring from the bed, and at the same moment saw Professor Hilprecht hurrying into his study. Thence came the cry, 'It is so, it is so.'

Grasping the situation, I followed him and satisfied myself in the midnight hour as to the outcome of his most interesting dream.[218]

"J. C. HILPRECHT."

At the time Professor Hilprecht told me of this curious dream, which was a few weeks after its occurrence, there remained a serious difficulty which he was not able to explain. According to the memoranda in our possession, the fragments were of different colours, and therefore could have scarcely belonged to the same object. The original fragments were in Constantinople, and it was with no little interest that I awaited Professor Hilprecht's return from the trip which he made thither in the summer of 1893. I translate again his own account of what he then ascertained.

"_November 10th_, 1895.

"In August 1893, I was sent by the Committee on the Babylonian Expedition to Constantinople, to catalogue and study the objects got from Nippur and preserved there in the Imperial Museum. It was to me a matter of the greatest interest to see for myself the objects which, according to my dream, belonged together, in order to satisfy myself that they had both originally been parts of the same votive cylinder. Halil Bey, the director of the museum, to whom I told my dream, and of whom I asked permission to see the objects, was so interested in the matter, that he at once opened all the cases of the Babylonian section, and requested me to search. Father Scheil, an a.s.syriologist from Paris, who had examined and arranged the articles excavated by us before me, had not recognised the fact that these fragments belonged together, and consequently I found one fragment in one case, and the other in a case far away from it. As soon as I found the fragments and put them together, the truth of the dream was demonstrated _ad oculos_--they had, in fact, once belonged to one and the same votive cylinder. As it had been originally of finely veined agate, the stone-cutter's saw had accidentally divided the object in such a way that the whitish vein of the stone appeared only upon the one fragment and the larger grey surface upon the other. Thus I was able to explain Dr. Peters's discordant description of the two fragments."

Professor Hilprecht is unable to say what language the old priest used in addressing him. He is quite certain that it was not a.s.syrian, and thinks it was either English or German.

There are two especial points of interest in this case, the character of the information conveyed, and the dramatic form in which it was put. The apparently novel points of information given were:--

1. That the fragments belonged together.

2. That they were fragments of a votive cylinder.

3. That the cylinder was presented by King Kurigalzu.

4. That it was dedicated to Ninib.

5. That it had been made into a pair of earrings.

6. That the "treasure chamber" was located upon the south-east side of the temple.

A careful a.n.a.lysis reveals the fact that not one of these items was beyond the reach of the processes of a.s.sociative reasoning which Professor Hilprecht daily employs. Among the possible a.s.sociative consequents of the writing upon the one fragment, some of the a.s.sociative consequents of the writing on the other were sub-consciously involved; the attraction of these identical elements brings the separate pieces into mental juxtaposition, precisely as the pieces of a "dissected map" find one another in thought. In waking life the dissimilarity of colour inhibited any tendency on the part of the a.s.sociative processes to bring them together, but in sleep this difference of colour seems to have been forgotten--there being no mention made of it--and the a.s.similation took place. The second point is more curious, but is not inexplicable. For as soon as the fragments were brought into juxtaposition mentally, enough of the inscription became legible to suggest the original character of the object. This is true also of the third and fourth points. The source of the fifth is not so clear. Upon examining the originals, Professor Hilprecht felt convinced from the size of the hole still to be seen through the fragments that they could not have been used as finger-rings, and that they had been used as earrings, but the written description which he had before him at the time of his dream did not bring these points to view. Still, such earrings are by no means uncommon objects. Such a supposition might well have occurred to Professor Hilprecht in his waking state and, in view of the lack of positive confirmation, it would be rash to ascribe it to any supernormal power. The last point is most interesting. When he told me this story, Professor Hilprecht remembered that he had heard from Dr.

John P. Peters, before he had the dream, of the discovery of a room in which were remnants of a wooden box, while the floor was strewn with fragments of agate and lapis-lazuli. The walls, of course, and ceiling have long since perished. The location, however, of the room he did not know, and suggested I should write to Dr. Peters and find out whether it was correctly given in his dream, and whether Dr. Peters had told him of it. Dr. Peters replied that the location given was correct, but, he adds, he told Professor Hilprecht all these facts as long ago as 1891, and thinks he provided him with a drawing of the room's relation to the temple. Of this Professor Hilprecht has no recollection. He thinks it probable that Dr. Peters told him orally of the location of the room, but feels sure that if any such plan was given him it would now be found among his papers. This is a point of no importance, however. We certainly cannot regard the location as ascertained by supernormal means.

IV. C. From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 505.

From Mr. Alfred Cooper, of 9 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, W.

[This account was orally confirmed by him to Mr. E. Gurney, June 6th, 1888. It is written by Mr. Cooper, but attested also by the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton.]

A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L----, in 1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton, in Hill Street, to see him professionally. After I had finished seeing him we went into the drawing-room, where the d.u.c.h.ess was, and the Duke said to me, "Oh, Cooper; how is the Earl?"

The d.u.c.h.ess said, "What Earl?" and on my answering, "Lord L----," she replied, "That is very odd. I have had a most extraordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in bed a short time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene as if from a play before me. The actors in it were Lord L----, in a chair, as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over which bath a red lamp was distinctly shown."

I then said, "I am attending Lord L---- at present; there is very little the matter with him; he is not going to die; he will be all right very soon."

Well, he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him suddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs.

I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead man. There were two male nurses attending on him; one had been taken ill. But when I saw the other the dream of the d.u.c.h.ess was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the Earl and, strange to say, his beard was red. There was the bath with the red lamp over it. It is rather rare to find a bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my mind.

The vision seen by the d.u.c.h.ess was told two weeks before the death of Lord L----. It is a most remarkable thing.

This account, written in 1888, has been revised by the [late] Duke of Manchester, father of the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton, who heard the vision from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it.

(Signed) MARY HAMILTON.

ALFRED COOPER.

Her Grace had been reading and had just blown out the candle. Her Grace has had many dreams which have come true years after.

ALFRED COOPER.

[The d.u.c.h.ess only knew Lord L---- by sight, and had not heard that he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened her eyes to get rid of the vision and, shutting them, saw the same thing again.]

An independent and concordant account has been given to me (F. W. H. M.) orally by a gentleman to whom the d.u.c.h.ess related the dream on the morning after its occurrence.

IV. D. From _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 383. The following account, which first appeared in a letter in the _Religio-Philosophical Journal_, is from Dr. Bruce, of Micanopy, Fla., U.S.A. The case might be called "collective," but for the fact that one of the dreams, though vivid and alarming, was probably not so distinctive as was afterwards imagined, and, moreover, was possibly dreamt on the night _preceding_ that on which the tragic event took place.

_February 17th, 1884._

On Thursday, the 27th of December last, I returned from Gainesville (twelve miles from here) to my orange grove, near Micanopy. I have only a small plank house of three rooms at my grove, where I spend most of my time when the grove is being cultivated. There was no one in the house but myself at the time, and being somewhat fatigued with my ride, I retired to my bed very early, probably 6 o'clock; and, as I am frequently in the habit of doing, I lit my lamp on a stand by the bed for the purpose of reading. After reading a short time, I began to feel a little drowsy, put out the light, and soon fell asleep. Quite early in the night I was awakened. I could not have been asleep very long, I am sure. I felt as if I had been aroused intentionally, and at first thought some one was breaking into the house. I looked from where I lay into the other two rooms (the doors of both being open), and at once recognised where I was, and that there was no ground for the burglar theory; there being nothing in the house to make it worth a burglar's time to come after.

I then turned on my side to go to sleep again, and immediately felt a consciousness of a presence in the room, and, singular to state, it was not the consciousness of a live person, but of a spiritual presence. This may provoke a smile, but I can only tell you the facts as they occurred to me. I do not know how to better describe my sensations than by simply stating that I felt a consciousness of a spiritual presence. This may have been a part of the dream, for I felt as if I were dozing off again to sleep; but it was unlike any dream I ever had. I felt also at the same time a strong feeling of superst.i.tious dread, as if something strange and fearful were about to happen. I was soon asleep again, or unconscious, at any rate, to my surroundings. Then I saw two men engaged in a slight scuffle: one fell fatally wounded--the other immediately disappeared. I did not see the gash in the wounded man's throat, but knew that his throat was cut. I did not recognise him, either, as my brother-in-law. I saw him lying with his hands under him, his head turned slightly to the left, his feet close together. I could, from the position in which I stood, see but a small portion of his face; his coat, collar, hair, or something partly obscured it. I looked at him the second time a little closer to see it I could make out who it was. I was aware it was some one I knew, but still could not recognise him. I turned, and then saw my wife sitting not far from him. She told me she could not leave until he was attended to. (I had got a letter a few days previously from my wife, telling me she would leave in a day or two, and was expecting every day a letter or telegram telling me when to meet her at the depot.) My attention was struck by the surroundings of the dead man. He appeared to be lying on an elevated platform of some kind, surrounded by chairs, benches, and desks, reminding me somewhat of a schoolroom. Outside of the room in which he was lying was a crowd of people, mostly females, some of whom I thought I knew. Here my dream terminated. I awoke again about midnight; got up and went to the door to see if there were any prospect of rain; returned to my bed again, and lay there until nearly daylight before falling asleep again. I thought of my dream, and was strongly impressed by it. All strange, superst.i.tious feelings had pa.s.sed off.

It was not until a week or ten days after this that I got a letter from my wife, giving me an account of her brother's death. Her letter, which was written the day after his death, was mis-sent.

The account she gave me of his death tallies most remarkably with my dream. Her brother was with a wedding party at the depot at Markham station, Fauquier Co., Va. He went into a store near by to see a young man who kept a bar-room near the depot, and with whom he had some words. He turned and left the man, and walked out of the store. The bar-room keeper followed him out, and without further words deliberately cut his throat. It was a most brutal and unprovoked murder. My brother-in-law had on his overcoat, with the collar turned up. The knife went through the collar and clear to the bone. He was carried into the store and laid on the counter, near a desk and show case. He swooned from loss of blood soon after being cut. The cutting occurred early Thursday night, December 27th. He did not die, however, until almost daylight, Sat.u.r.day morning.

I have not had a complete account of my sister-in-law's dream. She was visiting a young lady, a cousin, in Kentucky. They slept together Friday night, I think, the night of her brother's death.

She dreamed of seeing a man with his throat cut, and awoke very much alarmed. She awoke her cousin, and they got up and lighted the lamp and sat up until daylight. That day she received a telegram announcing her brother's death.

I cannot give you any certain explanation of these dreams. I do not believe that they are due to ordinary causes, but to causes of which science does not at present take cognisance.

WALTER BRUCE.

In reply to inquiries, Dr. Bruce says:--