The night side of nature

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Chapter II. The Dweller In The Temple

It is almost needless to observe, that the Scriptures repeatedly speak of man as a tripartite being, consisting of spirit, soul, and body ; and that, according to St. Paul, we have two bodies — a natural body, and a spiritual body ; the former being designed as our means ol communication with the external world — an instrument to be used and controlled by our nobler parts. It is this view of it, carried to a fanaticism, which has led to the various and extraordinary mortifications recorded of ascetics. As is remarked by the Rev. Hare Townshend, in a late edition of his book on Mesmerism, in this fleshly body consists our organic life ; in the body which we are to retain through eternity, consists our fundamental life. May not the first, he says, " be a temporary development of the last, just as leaves, flowers, and fruits, are the temporary developments of a tree ] And in the same manner that these pass and drop away, yet leave the principle of reproduction behind, so may our present organs be detached from us oy death, and yet the ground of our existence be spared to us continuously."

Without entering into the subtle disputes of philosophers, with regard to the spirit, a subject on which there is a standing controversy betwixt the disciples of Hegel and those of other teachers, I need only observe that the Scriptures seem to indicate what some of the heathen sages taught, that the spirit that dwells within as is the spirit of God, incorporated in us for a period,

16 THE DWELLER TS THE TEMPLE.

for certain ends of his own, to be thereby wrought out. What those ends are, it does not belong to my present subject to consider. In this spirit so imparted to us t dwells, says Eschenmayer, the conscience, which keeps watch over the body and the soul, saying, " Thus shalt thou do !" And it is to this Christ addresses himself when he bids his disciples become perfect, like their Father in Heaven. The soul is subject- to the spirit : and its functions are, to will, or choose, to think, and to feel, and to become thereby cognizant of the true, the beautiful, and the good ; comprehending the highest principle, the highest ideal, and the most perfect happiness. The Ego, or /, is the resultant of the throe forces, Pneuma, Psyche, Soma — spirit, soul, and body.

In the spirit or soul, or rather in both conjoined, dwells, also, the power of spiritual seeing, or intuitive knowing ; for, as there is a spiritual body, there is a spiritual eye, and a spiritual ear, and so forth ; or, to speak more correctly, all these sensuous functions are comprised in one universal sense, which does not need the aid of the bodily organs r but, on the contrary, is most efficient when most freed from them. It remains to be seen whether, or in what degree, such separation can take place during life ; complete it cannot be till death ; but whoever believes sincerely that the divine spirit dwells within him, can, I should think, find no difficulty in conceiving that, although from the temporary conditions to which it is subjected, this universal faculty is limited and obscured, it must still retain its indefeasible attribute.

We may naturally conclude that the most perfect state of man on earth consists in the most perfect unity of the spirit and the soul ; and to those who in this life have attained the nearest to that unity, will the entire assimilation of the two, after they are separated from the body, be the easiest ; whilst to those who have lived only their intellectual and external life, this union must be extremely difficult; the soul having chosen its

THE UWELLER IN THE TEMPLE. 17

part with the body and divorced itself, as much as in it lay, from the spirit. The voice ot conscience is then scarcely heard : and the soul, degraded and debased, can no longer perform its functions of discerning the true, the beautiful, and the good.

On these distinct functions of the soul and spirit, however, it is not my intention to insist ; since, it appears to me, a subject on which we are not yet in a condition to dogmatise. We know rather more about our bodies, by means ol which the soul and spirit are united and brought into contact with the material world, and which are constructed wholly with a view to the conditions of that world ; such as time, space, solidity, extension, &c. <fcc. But we must conceive of God as necessarily independent of these eonditions. To Him, all times and all places must be for ever present ; and it is thus that he is omniscient and omnipresent; and since we are placed by the spirit in immediate relation with God, and the spiritual world, just as we are placed by the body in immediate relation with the material world, we may, in the first place, fomi a notion of the possibility that some faint gleams of these inherent attributes may, at times, shoot up through the clay in which the spirit hath taken up its temporary abode'; and we may also admit, that through the connexion winch exists betwixt k us and the spiritual world, it is not impossible but that we may, at times, and under certain conditions, become cognizant of, and enter into more immediate relation with it. This is the only postulate I ask ; for, as I said before, I do not wish to enforce opinions, but to suggest probabilities, or at least possibilities, and thus arouse reflection and inquiry.

With respect to the term invisible world, I beg to remind my readers, that what we call seeing, is merely the function of an organ constructed for that purpose, in relation to the external world ; and so limited ara its powers, that we are surrounded by many thm«- m that world which we eannot see 4hou fthe Z of artificial appliances, and many other things whkh we eannot see even with them ; the atmosphereln which we live, for example, which, although its weight an mechanical forces are the subjects of accuratc°caleuk

Thus L^ffZ r PerC f ptiMe *° our ** ^ga i Tims, the fact that we do not commonly see them

forms no legitimate objection to the hypothesis of Z'

being surrounded by a world of spirits, or of tha

world being inter-diffused amongst us. SupwsL t£

crrs o ant to of b t e h decid i'- ? a * we d ° --Srs m

cogm^nt of them, which, however, I admit it is notsince, ^etier the apparitions are subjective or 2b' jective, that is, whether they are the mei pLomena ol disease, or real outstanding appearances, is theT quiry I desire to promote-but, I say, supposin7 t w question were decided in the affirmative, thfSt that arises is, how, or by what means do 'we see tW 01 if they address us, hear them ? If that umyeSd

Sr o ; V^^ t0 me t0 b « Separable from the noTi.T ' bG ^ admitt ^I*hink there cTn be no difficulty m answermg this question : and if it be objected that we are conscious of no 'such sense T

SETo "tt'boV 11 -^ 8 andln -tla^ia states ot the body, it is frequently manifested Tn order to render this more cleai, and/at the Sm e time to gl y an interesting instance of this soitTpheno menon J will transcribe a passage from a letter of St

^fcutfonV 118 Mend EVadiUS ( E P i8t0la ^ 4^ <■ "J ? iU -n el f e to y° n a circumstance," he writes

bother Sennadius, well known to us all as an emine physician, and whom we especially love who k Z 2 Carthage, after having distLguiaL ffl 2£ ^J with whose piety and active benevolence you "re well acquainted, could yet, nevertheless, as he has "lately nairated to us, by no means bring himself to believe in a life after death. 'Now, God, doubtless, not willing that his soul should perish, there appeared to him, one night in a dream, a radiant youth of noble aspect, who bade him follow him ; and as Sennadius obeyed, they came to a city where, on the right side, he heard a chorus of the most heavenly voices. As he desired to know whence this divine harmony proceeded, the youth told him that what he heard were the songs of the blessed ; whereupon he awoke, and thought no more of his dreams than people usually do. On another night, however, behold ! the youth appears to him again and asks if he knows him, and Sennadius related to him all the particulars of his former dream, which he well remembered. ' Then,' said the youth, i was it whilst sleeping or waking that you saw these things V ' I was sleeping,' answered Sennadius. • You are right,' returned the youth, e it was in your sleep that you saw these things ; and know, oh, Sennadius, that what you see now is also in your sleep. But if this be so, tell me where then is your body V c In my bedchamber,' answered Sennadius. •' But know you not,' continued the stranger, ' that your eyes, which form a part of your body, are closed and inactive ¥ C I know it,' answered he. 'Then,' said the youth, e with what eyes see you these things? And Sennadius could not answer hini ; and as he hesitated, the youth spoke again, and explained to him the motive of his questions. i As the eyes of your body,' said he, • which lies now on your bed and sleeps, are inactive and useless, and yet you have eyes wherewith you see me and these things I have shown unto you, so after death, when these bodily organs fail you, you will have a vital power, whereby you will live ; and a sensitive faculty, whereby you will perceive. Doubt, therefore, no longer that there is a life after death.' And thus," said this excellent man, " was I convinced, and ail doubts removed."

I confess there appears to me a beauty and a logical truth in this dream, that I think might convince morethan the dreamer.

It is by the hypothesis of this universal sense, latent within us. an hypothesis which, whoever believes that we are immortal spirits, incorporated for a season in a material body, can scarcely reject, that T seek to explain those perceptions which are not comprised vithin the functions of our bodily organs. It seems to me to be the key to all, or nearly all of them, as far as our own part in the phenomena extends. But, supposing this admitted, there would then remain the difficulty of accounting for the partial and capricious glimpses we get of it ; whilst in that department of the mystery which regards apparitions, except such as are the pure result of disease, we must grope our way, with very little light to guide us, as to the conditions and motives which might possibly bring them into any immediate relation with us.

To any one who has been fortunate enough to witness one genuine case of clairvoyance, I think the conception of this universal sense will not be difficult; however, the mode of its exercise may remain utterly incomprehensible. As I have said above — to the great spirit and fountain of life all things, both in space and time, must be present. However impossible it is to our finite minds to conceive this, we must believe it. It may, in some slight degree, Tacilitate the conception to remember that action, once begun, never ceases — an impulse given is transmitted on for ever, a sound breathed reverberates in eternity, and thus the past is always present, although, for the purpose of fitting us for this mortal life, our ordinary senses are so constituted as to be unperceptive of these phenomena. With respect to what we call the future, it is more difficult still for us to conceive it as present; nor, as far as I know, can we borrow from the sciences the same assistance as mechanical discoveries have just furnished

THE DWELLER IX THE TEMPLE. 21

me with regard to the past. How a spirit sees that which has not yet, to our senses, taken place, seems, certainly, inexplicable. Foreseeing it is not inexplicable ; we foresee many things by arguing on given premises, although, from our own finite views, we are always liable to be mistaken. Louis Lambert says, " Such events as are the product of humanity, and the result of its intelligence, have their own causes in which they lie latent, just as our actions are accomplished in our thoughts previous to any outward demonstration of them; presentiments and prophecies consist in the intuitive perception of these causes." This explanation, which is quite conformable with that of Cicero, may aid us in some degree as regards a certain, small class of phenomena, but there is something involved in the question much more subtle than this; our dreams can give Us the only idea of it, for there we do actually see and hear, not only that which never was, but that which never will be. Actions and events, words and sounds, persons and places, are as clearly and vividly present to us as if they were actually what they seem, and I should think that most people must be somewhat puzzled to decide in regard to certain scenes and circumstances that live in their memory, whether the images are the result of their waking or sleeping experience. Although by no means a dreamer, and without the most remote approximation to any faculty of presentiment, I know this is the case with myself. I remember also a very curious effect being produced upon me when I was abroad, some years ago, from eating the iin wholesome bread to which we were reduced, in consequence of a scarcity. Some five or six times a day I was seized with a sort of vertigo, during which I seemed to pass through certain scenes, and was conscious of certain words which appeared to me to have a strange connexion, either with some former period oi my life, or else some previous state of existence; the words and the scenes were on each occasion precisely

THE DWELLER Itf THE TEMPLE.

the saitio. I was always aware of that, and I always made the strongest efforts to grasp and retain them in my memory, but I conld not; I only knew that the thing had been, the words and the scenes were gone. I seemed to pass momentarily into another sphere and back again. This was purely the result of disorder but, like a dream, it shows how we may be perceptive of that which is not, and which never may be, rendering it, therefore, possible to conceive that a spirit may be equally perceptive of that which shall be. I am very far from meaning to imply that these examples remove the difficulty; they do not explain the thing, they only show somewhat the mode of it. But it must be remembered that when physiologists pretend to settle the wmole question of apparitions by the theory of spectral illusions they are exactly in the same predicament. They can supply examples of similar phenomena, but how a person, perfectly in his senses, should receive the spectral visits, not only of friends, but strangers, when he is thinking of no such matter, or by what process, mental or optical, the figures are conjured up, remains as much a mystery as before a line was written on the subject.

All people and all ages have believed, more or less, in prophetic dreams, presentiments, and apparitions, and all histories have furnished examples of them. That the truths may be frequently distorted and mingled with fable is no argument against those traditions; if it were, all history must be rejected on the same plea. Both the Old and New Testament furnish numerous examples of these phenomena, and although Christ and the Apostles reproved all the superstitions of the age, these persuasions are not included in their reprehensions.

Neither is the comparative rarity of these phenomena any argument against their possibility. There are many strange things which occur still more rarely, but which we do not look upon as supernatural or miraculous. Of nature's ordinary laws we yet know but little, of their aberrations and perturbations still less. How should we, when the world is a miracle and life a dream, of which we know neither the beginning nor the end ! We do not even know that we see anything as it is, or rather we know that we do not. We see things but as our visual organs represent them to us, and were those organs differently constructed the aspect of the world would to us be changed. How then can we pretend to decide upon what is and what is not ?

Nothing could be more perplexing to any one who read them with attention, than the trials for witchcraft of the seventeenth century. Many of the feats of the ancient thaumaturgists and wonder-workers of the temples, might have been nearly as much so; but, these were got rid of by the easy expedient of pronouncing them fables and impostures; but, during the witch mania, so many persons proved their faith in their own miraculous powers by the sacrifice of their lives, that it was scarcely possible to doubt their having some foundation for their own persuasion, though what that foundation could be, till the late discoveries in animal magnetism, it was difficult to conceive: but here we have a new page opened to us ; which concerns both the history of the w r orld and the history of man, as an individual; and we begin to see, that that which the ignorant thought supernatural, and the wise impossible, has been both natural and true. Whilst the scientific men of Great Britain, and several of our journalists, have been denying and ridiculing the reports of these phenomena, the most eminent physicians of Germany have been quietly studying and investigating them; and giving to the world, in their works, the results of their experience. Amongst the rest, Dr. Joseph Ennemoser, of Berlin, has presented to us in his two books on " Magic,'* and on '■ The Connexion of Magnetism with Nature and Religion," the fruits of his thirty years' study of this subject; during the course of which he has had repeated opportunities of investigating all the phenomena, and of making himself perfectly familiar with even the most rare and perplexing.

To any one who has studied these works, the mysteries of the temples and of the witch trials are mysteries no longer; and he writes with the professed design, not to make science mystical, but to bring the mysterious within the bounds of science. The phenomena, as he justly says, are as old as the human race. Animal magnetism is no new development, nc new discovery. Inseparable from life, although, like many other vital phenomena, so subtle in its influences, that only in abnormal cases it attracts attention, it has exhibited itself more or less in all ages, and in all countries. But its value as a medical agent is only -now beginning to dawn on the civilized world, whilst its importance, in a higher point of view, is yet pei oeived but by few. Every human being who has ever withdrawn himself from the strife, and the turmoil, and tbe distraction of the world without, in order to look within, must have found himself perplexed by a thousand questions with regard to his own being which he would find no one able to solve. In the study of animal magnetism, he will first obtain some gleams of a light which w^ill show him that he is indeed the child of God ! and that, though a dweller on the earth and fallen, some traces of his divine descent, and of his unbroken connexion with a higher order of being, still^emain to comfort and encourage him. He will find that there exists in his species the germs of faculties that are never fully unfolded here on earth, and which have no reference to this state of being. They exist in all men; but in most cases are so faintly elicited as not to be observable; and when they do shoot up here and there, they are denied, disowned, misinterpreted, and maligned. It is true, that their development is often the symptom and effect of disease, which seems to change the relations of our material and immaterial parts. It is

THE DWELLER D* THE TEMPLE. 25

true, that some of the phenomena resulting from these faculties are simulated by disease, as in the case of spectral illusions; and it is true, that imposture and folly intrude their unhallowed footsteps into this domain of science, as into that of all others; but there is a deep and holy well of truth to be discovered in this neglected bye-path of nature, by those who seek it, from which they may draw the purest consolations for the present, the most ennobling hopes for the future, and the most valuable aid in penetrating through the letter into the spirit of the Scriptures.

I confess it makes me sorrowful when I hear men laughing, scorning, and denying this their birthright] aud I cannot but grieve to think how closely and heavily their clay must be wrapt about them, and how the external and sensuous life must have prevailed over the internal, when no gleam from within breaks through to show them that these things are trm,

Chapter III. Waking And Sleeping

AND HOW THE DWELLER IN THE TEMPLE

SOMETIMES LOOKS ABROAD.

To begin with the most simple — or rather, I should say, the most ordinary, class of phenomena — for we can scarcely call that simple, the mystery of which we have never been able to penetrate — I mean dreaming — everybody's experience will suffice to satisfy them, that their ordinary dreams take place in a state of imperfect sleep ; and that this imperfect sleep may be caused by any bodily or mental derangement whatever; or even from an ill-made bed, or too much or too little covering ; and it is not difficult to conceive that the strange, confused, and disjointed visions we are subject to on these occasions, may proceed from some parts of the brain being less at rest than the others; so that, assuming phrenology to be fact, one organ is not in a state to correct the impressions of another. Of such vain and insignificant visions, I need scarcely say it is not my fntention to treat ; but at the same time I must observe, that when we have admitted the above explanation, as far as it goes, we have not, even in regard to them, made much progress towards removing the difficulty. If dreaming resembled thinking, the explanations might be quite satisfactory ; but the truth is, that dreaming is not thinking, as we think in our waking state; but is more analogous to thinking in delirium or acute mania, or in that chronic condition which gives rise to sensuous illusions. In our ordinary normal state, con-

WAKING AM> tff.EEriXC, ETC. 37

ceiving of places or persons does not enable us to see them or hold coinniimion with them; nor cJQ_ we faacy that we do either. It is true that I have heard some painters say, that by closing their eyes and concentrat ing their thoughts on an object, they can bring it more or less vividly before them : and Blake j>rofessed actually to see his sitters when they were not present; bu* whatever interpretations we may put upon this curious faculty, his case was clearly abnormal, and connected with some personal peculiarity, either physical or psychical; and, after making the most of it, it must be admitted that it can enter into no sort of comparison with that we possess in sleep, when in our most ordinary dreams, untrammelled by time or space, we visit the uttermost ends of the earth, fly in the air, swim in the sea, listen to beautiful music and eloquent orations, behold the most charming, as well as the most loathsome objects ; and not only see, but converse with our friends, absent or present, dead or alive. Every one, I think, will grant that there is the widest possible difference betwixt conceiving of these things when awake, and dreaming them. When we dream, we do, we see, we say, we hear, &c. &c, that is, we believe at the time that we do so; and what more can be said of us when we are awake, than that we believe we are doing, seeing saying, hearing, &c. It is by external circumstances, and the result of our actions, that we are able to decide whether we have actually done a thing or seen a place, or only dreamt that we have done so; and as I havfsaid above, after some lapse of time, we are not always able to distinguish between the two. Whilst dreaming we frequently ask ourselves whether we are awake or asleep; and nothing is more common than to hear people say, " Well, I think I did, or heard so and so ; but I am not sure whether it was so, or whether I dreamt it." Thvis, therefore, the very lowest order of dreaming, the most disjointed and perplexed, is far removed from the most vivid presentations of our waking thoughts;

28 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC,

and it is in this respect, I think, that the explanations ol the phenomena hitherto offered by phrenologists, and the metaphysicians of this country, are inadequate and unsatisfactory; whilst as regards the analogy betwixt the visions of sleep and delirium, whatever similarity ''here may be in the effects, we cannot suppose tht, cause to be identical: since, in delirium, the images and delusions are the result of excessive action ol the brain, which we must conclude to be the very reverse of its condition in si^r-v Pinel certainly has hazarded an opinion that sleep is occasioned by an efflux of blood to the head, and consequent compression of the brain — a theory which would have greater weight were sleep more strictly periodical than it is; but which, at present, it seems impossible to reconcile with many established fact*.

Some of the German physiologists and psychologists have taken a deeper view of this question of dreaming, from considering it in connexion with the phenomena of animal magnetism: and although their theories differ in some respects, they all unite in looking towards that department of nature for instruction. Whilst one section of these inquirers, the Exegetical Society of Stockholm included, calls in the aid of supernatural agency, another, amongst whom Dr. Joseph Eimemoser, of Berlin, appears to be one of the most eminent r maintains that the explanation of the mystery is to be chiefly sought in the great and universal law of polarity, which extends not only beyond the limits of this earthy but beyond the limits ol this system, which must necessarily be in connexion with all others ; so that there is thus an eternal and never-ceasing inter-action, of which, from the multiplicity and contrariety of the influences we are insensible, just as we are insensible of the pressure of the atmosphere, from its impinging on us equally on all sides.

Waking and sleeping are the day and night sides of organic life, during which alternation an animal is placed

WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 29

in different relations to the external world, and to these alternations all organisms are subject. The completeness and independence of each individual organism, is in exact ratio to the number and completeness of the organs it developes ; and thus the locomotive animal has the advantage of the plant or the zoophyte, whilst, of the animal kingdom, man is the most complete and independent ; and, although still a member of the universal whole, and therefore incapable of isolating himself, yet better able than any other organism to ward off external influences, and comprise his world within himself. But, according to Dr. Ennemoser, *>ne of the consequences of this very completeness, is a weak and insignificant development of instinct ; and thus the healthy, waking, conscious man, is, of all organisms, the least sensible to the impressions of this universal intercommunication and polarity ; although, at the same time, partaking of the nature of the plant and the animal, he is subject, like the first, to all manner of atmospheric, telluric, and periodic influences ; and frequently exhibits, like the second, peculiar instinctive appetites and desires, and, in some individual organizations, very marked antipathies and susceptibilities with regard to certain objects and influences, even when not placed in any evident relation with them.

According to this theory, sleep is a retrograde step — - a retreating into a lower sphere ; in which condition, the sensuous functions being in abeyance, the instincts somewhat resume their sway. " In sleep and in sickness/' he says, u the higher animals and man fall in a physico-organical pohit of view, from their individual independence, or power of self sustainment ; and their polar relation, that is, their relation to the healthy and waking man, becomes changed from a positive to a negative one ; all men, in regard to each other, as well as all nature, being the subjects of this polarity. It is to be remembered, that this theory of Dr. Ennemoser's was promulgated before the discoveries of Baron you