Posthumous Humanity: A Study of Phantoms

Front matter

A Study of Phantoms.

by ADOLPHE D'ASSIER, Member of the Bordeaux Academy of Sciences.

Translated and Annotated by HENRY S. OLCOTT, President of the Theosophical Society.

Author's Introduction and Plan

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION AND PLAN.

The title of this essay will, perhaps, seem to certain persons in conflict with the philosophical opinions which I have all my life professed, as well as with the great school towards which the study of the sciences had led me even before I had heard the word of the master. Let such persons be reassured: the contradiction is but imaginary. Besides the Elements of Analytical Geometry, which his biographers omit to mention, I have accepted of Auguste Comte's writings only his Course of Positive Philosophy. And, furthermore, I have had to reject certain passages wherein were already revealed the familiar tendencies of the "High-priest of Humanity"—tendencies to be regretted in a work which will take rank among the chief ones of this age, and which I regard as the highest expression that philosophic thought has ever attained. This system of expurgation naturally traced my own programme, and the ideas I shall now set forth are as far removed from the dreams of mysticism as from the hallucinations of the spiritists. Never transcending the domain of facts, nor invoking any supernatural cause to explain them, I have designed to give to my hook the stamp of Positivism. And now let the reader observe how I have been led into researches so different from my ordinary work.

Every one is familiar with the great impulse that the study of aërolites has acquired of late—their connection with shooting-stars, the relationship between these latter and comets, the part which each of these asteroids plays in the economy of the solar world, the indications they afford as to the chemical nature of the matter diffused throughout space; all these amply prove the value which astronomers attach to this new branch of celestial exploration. Yet it is barely a half-century since the importance of such researches had begun to be felt, and each time that our journals announce a fall of meteors I cannot help recalling to mind the superb disdain with which the men of science used to greet every communication of the sort, and their obstinate denials of the most precise affirmations by observers. We all know the reply one day made by Lavoisier in the name of the Academy of Sciences; "There are no stones in the sky; therefore none can fall thence upon the earth!" Thus it was until 1803. On the 26th of April in that year, an enormous bolide (meteoric stone), which burst near l'Aigle (Orne), covered with its fragments more than ten square kilometers of ground. Several thousand persons having witnessed this phenomenon, which occurred in full daylight, the Academy of Sciences came to the conclusion to send one of its members, Biot, to the spot to make an investigation. At his return, he laid before the eyes of his colleagues a number of specimens, and finished by convincing the sceptics. Stones could, then, after all, drop upon the earth, despite the assertion of the scientists that there were none in the sky. Hoping to extricate the astronomers from their sad predicament, Laplace went into a calculation, by which he attempted to show that the lunar volcanoes possessed a projectile force great enough to fling out fragments of rock to a distance where the attraction of the earth might become preponderant over that of her satellite. Thenceforward projectiles had permission to fall among us. Later it was discovered that these asteroids circulated in countless numbers around the sun, and different observations assign to them for origin the streams of cosmic matter resulting from the rupture of cometary tails. Aërolites, so long denied by the scientists, may now be seen by thousands in our collections.

Stone-showers were not the only phenomena of this nature. Many persons had witnessed the fall of large numbers of toads in the midst of certain heavy showers; there was but one answer to their affirmations—that of Lavoisier slightly altered: toads do not exist in the clouds; consequently none can tumble upon the earth. As it was absolutely necessary to take some notice of these animals, which fairly covered the ground, it was added that they came from eggs hidden beneath stones, and which were suddenly hatched out by the heat and electricity which usually accompany showers. It might have been objected that the size of the toads ill accorded with the diminutiveness of the eggs whence they were alleged to have emerged, and that furthermore it was their nature to first show themselves under the form of tadpoles before adopting that of their adult age. But the scientists were not men to permit themselves to be stopped by such trifling annoyances, and it was of small moment to them whether or not they gave a twist to the most fundamental laws of natural history when their theory was jeopardized. A rain of oranges having occurred after a heavy shower, it was soon discovered that these novel projectiles had come from a neighbouring orange-grove that had been stripped by the tempest. This undoubted fact set people to thinking, and to study at closer range the progress and nature of storms which produced such phenomena. Before long it was seen they were dealing with cyclones, whose whirlwinds caught up whatever they encountered in their path to deposit it further on. If a sea was being traversed, the water was first sucked up and afterwards dropped, with its aquatic population, elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Toads, then, might fall upon the earth despite their not existing in the clouds.

It was permissible to suppose that such lessons would not be wasted, and that persons calling themselves discreet would for the future show more circumspection in their wholesale and systematic denials. It was not so. False notions, that we found upon our prejudices or an imperfect education, imprint upon our brain a sort of personal equation, of which we cannot rid ourselves. During thirty years I had laughed at the reply of Lavoisier, without perceiving that I myself invoked the identical argument in trying to account for certain phenomena equally strange with the showers of stones or toads. I refer to the weird noises that are sometimes heard in certain habitations, and that cannot be ascribed to any physical cause, at least in the vulgar sense that we give to that word. A circumstance worthy of remark doubles the singularity of this phenomenon. It is that these noises usually occur only after the decease of some occupant of the dwelling. While yet a child, I had seen the entire population of a canton thrown into excitement. The Abbé Peyton, curé of the parish of Sentenac (Ariège), had died. The following days there were heard strange noises in the Presbytery, and of so persistent a character that the new incumbent was on the point of abandoning his post. The country people, as ignorant as superstitious, were not in the least embarrassed to account for the prodigy. They declared that the soul of the defunct was in suffering, because he had not had time to say before dying all the masses for which he had been feed. For my part I was not at all convinced. Reared in the Christian dogma, I said to myself that the Abbé Peyton must have undoubtedly quitted the planet for one or the other of the three posthumous residences, Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory, and I fancied that the gates of the two penitentiaries were too solidly bolted to permit of his indulging any fancy of returning to make up arrears. Later, having fallen into another current of ideas, as much from the study of comparative religion as of that of science, I grew still more incredulous, and felt a pity for those who pretended that they had witnessed such spectacles. Spirits, said I, exist only in the imagination of mediums or spiritists; hence one could not meet them elsewhere. In 1868, finding myself in Berry, I reddened with impatience against a poor woman who persisted in affirming that, in a lodging she had occupied at a certain time, every night an invisible hand had pulled the clothes off her bed as soon as she put out the light. I treated her like a crazy idiot. Soon afterwards came the terrible year. I came out of it, for my part, with the loss of my sight and, a still graver thing, with the first symptoms of a complete paralysis. Having been an eye-witness to the marvellous cures effected by the medicinal springs of Aulus in the treatment of certain diseases, especially those due to the prostration of vital energy, I went there in the spring of 1871, and was able to arrest the progress of my malady. The purity of the mountain air, as well as the vivifying action of the mineral waters, determined me to fix my permanent residence in that locality. I could then study at close quarters these nocturnal disturbances which I had previously but known by hearsay.

After the death of the old proprietor of the springs, the bathing establishment had become almost nightly the theatre of scenes of this character. The watchmen dared not sleep there alone. Sometimes the bathing-tubs resounded at midnight as with the strokes of a hammer. If the closet was opened whence the noise proceeded, it straightway stopped, but recommenced in the next compartment. When they were quiet, there were other manifestations not less curious: blows were struck on the partitions, human footfalls were heard in the watchman's room, objects of various sorts were flung upon the floor, &c. My first impulse upon hearing these stories was, as usual, incredulity. However, finding myself in daily contact with persons who had been witnesses of these nightly scenes, the conversation would naturally keep reverting to the one topic. Certain peculiarities at last riveted my attention. I cross-questioned the manager and watchmen of the establishment, all those who had passed the night, and, in short, every person who could give me any facts about these mysterious occurrences. Their answers were identical, and the details they supplied so circumstantial that I saw myself forced into this dilemma—to believe, or to suppose them all insane. But I could not tax with madness some twenty honest villagers living peaceably about me, solely because they repeated what they had seen or heard, and because their stories were identical.

This unexpected result recalled to memory circumstances of a similar kind that had been related to me at other times. Knowing the localities where these phenomena had occurred, and the witnesses as well, I made further researches, and there again was forced to yield to the evidence. I then began to see that I had been as absurd as those whom I had so long been ridiculing, in denying facts which I had declared impossible simply because they had not been produced under my own eyes, and because I could not explain them. This post dynamic, which in certain points seems the antithesis of the ordinary dynamic, caused me to reflect, and I began to suspect that in certain cases, possibly very rare, the action of the human personality may prolong itself for some time after the cessation of the phenomena of life. The proofs which I possessed seemed to me strong enough to convince unprejudiced minds. However, I did not stop there, but consulted the most reputed authors of different countries. I then chose between such as presented the characteristics of the most incontestable authority, giving most value to facts which had been observed by a large number of witnesses.

It remained to interpret these facts, that is, to strip them of everything like the marvellous, so as to connect them, like all other natural phenomena, with the laws of time and space. Such is the chief aim of this book. In presence of a task so arduous I would not have the pretension of pronouncing the last word of the enigma: it suffices for me to state the problem exactly, and indicate some of the coefficients which must be included in the equation. My successors will find the exact solution within the lines I have traced for them.

A single word now as to the plan upon which I have worked. At the outset, I cite without comment the facts which seem worthy of keeping in mind, and only begin to draw inferences when there are enough to cover the different circumstance which may enter into so delicate and obscure a question. Invariably one is forced to notice a mysterious agent revealing itself by manifestations of the most peculiar and varied nature. Averse from invoking a supernatural cause, I seek to discover whether there may not be in living nature some unfamiliar principle which, in certain cases and within certain limits, may act as an active and independent force. I find this principle not only in man, but as well in the higher species of the zoological scale; so that posthumous humanity is, in fact, but a special example of posthumous animality, and that this latter presents itself as the immediate consequence of the living world.

The study of this principle leads me to that of the magnetic fluid, which seems to be its generative cause. I then analyze the various manifestations of this factor of psychology, notably in mesmerism, and find the explanation of a crowd of phenomena which, having been known only on their mystical sides, have seemed to be capable only of attachment to theology properly so called, or to its younger sister, demonology. Shorn of all supernatural explanation, the post-mortuary personality appears in its real aspect, and one can trace the origin of phantoms, their physical and moral state, and the destiny reserved for them. The philosophical purpose of the book may then be stated thus to bring within the compass of the laws of time and space the phenomena of the posthumous order, hitherto denied by science because it was unable to explain them, and to rescue the people of our epoch from the enervating hallucinations of spiritism.

Authorization

AUTHORIZATION.

Tarascon (Ariège), 9 Décembre, 1885.

Monsieur le Colonel,

Vous me faites demander, par l'entremise de * * * , l'autorisation de traduire en anglais, avec une addition, le livre que j'ai publié sous ce titre: "Essai sur l'Humanité Posthume et le Spiritisme, par un Positiviste." Je vous accorde volontiers cette autorisation, vous priant de vouloir bien me faire parvenir un exemplaire de votre traduction dès qu'elle aura parue.

Bien à vous, Adolphe d'Assier, De l'Academie des Sciences de Bordeaux.

Translator's Preface

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

The present work is one of the most ingenious essays extant upon the solemn theme of the future life. By the quality of mind which Prof. Tyndall calls an "educated imagination," the author propounds a reasonable theory to account scientifically for many of the more striking phenomena of psychic action. While showing no proofs of familiarity with the esoteric theories of Aryan psychology, he nevertheless broaches them as original suggestions of his own mind; and the Indian believer in Karmic palingenesis would be tempted to regard him as one who had, in his previous birth, been a Brahman. Besides the coveted pleasure of introducing so valuable a monograph to the non-French-knowing public, a stronger motive prompted me to undertake the labour of translating and annotating it. Hitherto, the believers in a future life have had to meet their opponents, including the Comtists, upon cis-sepulchral ground; all phenomena ascribed to apparitions and communications therewith being by the majority barred as unscientific, hence indiscussable. No amount of evidence, however seemingly valid, has been accepted as sufficient; not even the countless facts of Modern Spiritualism. Nego quia absurdum est, has been the tiresome and conceited rejoinder. Out of the host of scientific leaders a mere handful have dared to investigate; fewer still to report impartially their results. It is in vain that two thousand volumes, exclusive of tracts and pamphlets, have been published upon mediumistic wonders within the past forty years; and that similar testimonies abound in the records of all past generations of mankind: the same absurd answer has been repeated. So malignant has been the scepticism of the majority, the combined weight of professional disfavour has been thrown upon candid scientists like Hare, Wallace, Wagner, Crookes, and Zöllner, who had the integrity and courage to testify to their experiences with mediums and séances. Their facts being unanswerable, their sanity has been questioned. No doubt there are, of late, signs of increased interest in this wide department of research. The formation of a special society at London, and the marvellous experiments of Charcot and his colleagues in France with hysteriacs, betray a turn of the tide; yet we see the most marked desire to trace to some other than the spiritual or psychical source such phenomena as are being observed, rather than concede an inch to the spiritualists. Anything would be preferable to that; even the certainty of annihilation. At such a conjuncture as this, the help of an avowed Positivist in removing the grave barrier and leading us into the frontiers of the Shadow Land is most timely and valuable. It matters little that he parts company with us soon afterwards. It is the first step which costs. He drags the question upon solid scientific ground, and we ought to get on alone. If any Pharoah of Comtism shall henceforth pursue us, he will be engulfed in the sea that this new Moses will turn in upon him. M. d'Assier may, if he chooses, believe that final atomic dispersion awaits the posthumous human phantom sooner or later; he has given us weapons to slay materialists withal, and we are his grateful debtors. We are now prepared to trace evolution from the objective up to other and higher planes of activity. We need no modern helper for that; the teachers and textbooks abound, if not in the West, then in the East. It is a source of constant satisfaction to amateurs of Asiatic philosophy and science that the progress of modern research brings Western thought nearer and nearer the point where it must merge into the ancient Esoteric Doctrine. Not a single recent scientific discovery appears to conflict with this idea: quite the contrary; the irresistible force of attraction brings the two schools closer together every year. Electrical science is the Nemesis of the Aryan Rishis against our sciolists. It is in its infancy, it must be remembered; yet how gigantic already its strides! There are those who can foresee that, within the next ten years, electrical discoveries will be made in comparison with which those hitherto achieved will seem trifles. These discoveries will perhaps prove the connection of thought with cosmic forces, and give us a measure of intellectual and psychical dynamics. It is also quite possible that within about the same time the present puzzle as to the intelligence behind the mediumistic phenomena will be solved to the general satisfaction. The boldness and originality of M. d'Assier's speculations will then be properly appreciated, and he will take his proper place among psychological writers. Let us all hope he may live to enjoy that satisfaction.

It has seemed to me that it would add value to the present work to collate for it the opinions of the Indian people respecting the shadow-world, and our relations with the same. Their beliefs are those of their ancestors, and, like the latter, founded largely upon personal experience. It is surely useless to argue that popular beliefs are no exception to the law of nature, which in time destroys that which finds no nutriment to renew itself upon. It is all very well to theorize upon the persistency of popular credulity; but if man's opinions are continually modified by education, and his faculties, like his bodily organs, die out when not exercised, it seems almost axiomatic that there would be no believers in apparitions and other psychical proofs of a future life if none had been seen and tested in successive generations up to the present. Allowing as much as possible for the sentiment of reverence, it is incredible that any body of theological dogma about past "miracles" should survive indefinitely, unless fresh "miraculous" phenomena were from time to time occurring. Contemporaneous Hindu belief as to man's future existence, and the reality of psychical powers in us, rests upon something more than mere tradition or religious dogma: there is more or less of personal experience; scarcely a fraction as compared with what their parents or grandparents had, to be sure, yet a great body of proof in the aggregate. During my seven years' residence in India, I have heard of nearly every phase of phenomena known among Western spiritualists or recorded in Western history. One may hear of them even in the Presidency towns. My travels have extended to every corner of the land, and brought me amongst most Indian nations, whether of the mountains or plains. I have enjoyed opportunities, probably wider than any other white man, to form close friendships with the most intellectual and influential class of these various nationalities. I think, therefore, that I ought to know what these people believe, and why, and the above assertion is made in the conviction of its truth. I venture to affirm, as the result of this experience, that in the India of to-day there can be found, with diligent search, ample proof of the reality of phenomena like those described by M. d'Assier, and even of phases he omits to mention. There are here true adepts of white magic, and practitioners of black sorcery; mediums; mesmerista; "living phantoms" projected, "posthumous phantoms" haunting their houses and obsessing their relatives; vampires, living and dead; wehr-wolves, or temporary metamorphoses of the human Double into animal shapes; blightings of persons, animals, trees, and crops by malignant will-currents or "evil-eye;" criminal subjections of persons to another's will; ascetics in possession of herbs, minerals and preparations capable of effecting results that might almost be called miraculous; others who have metallurgical secrets, of which that of the solidification of mercury by a vegetable juice is a striking yet by no means the greatest example; men who can draw horoscopes that are alleged to premonish of even the petty events of one's life; men who can fast for weeks together, and some who can even suffer themselves to be entombed and afterwards resuscitate themselves. Is it not important, then, to ask what India thinks of our mediums and their phenomena, our speculations and deductions from psychic facts? Can we afford to ignore the Indian records, and keep stumbling and groping through the darkness of our Western inexperience, regardless of risks? I thought not; so I sent out to friends, in a number of places in India, the circular which will be found in the Appendix, soliciting replies. An Asiatic is never in a hurry, so, after waiting until my patience gave out, I got only those answers which have been tabulated with the circular; others will come dropping in for months to come. Yet, though what I have are few as yet, they are interesting, and indicate the rich harvest that awaits the reaping. There are facts enough procurable to fill a library of books, and countless ancient books in which there is more truth written about the mystery of human nature than all the Transactions of our academies and societies contain. Time will show.

It will provoke the sympathy of his readers to learn that M. d'Assier is totally blind, and yet that, like the late Mr. Fawcett, the historian Prescott, and a few other courageous men, he labours on as industriously as others do with their eyes to help them. How different from the deplorable despair of Ploetz, the German naturalist, who, becoming almost blind, the other day took poison. He left the following note:—"I consider myself justified, after my long career, which, threatened as I am with complete loss of sight, would be insupportable to me if, as would be the case, I could no longer devote it to the cause of science, &c." In answer to my request for some autobiographical notes for insertion in the present edition, M. d'Assier has been so obliging as to communicate the following facts. He was born March 9th, 1827, and in 1848 was preparing himself at the Ecole Polytechnique for his scientific career when the revolution of February broke out. He was then at Toulouse. As soon as the Republic was declared at the capital, he enlisted as a volunteer in the 11th Artillery, then garrisoned in the former city. When he saw that Europe was not disposed to interfere, he procured a substitute, and went to Paris to resume his scientific studies, at the Sorbonne, the Collège de France, and the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes. He assisted actively in the defence of French liberty against the usurpation of the 2nd December, just escaping the loss of his life. His health was quite broken down, and his constitution never rallied completely, while the fearful events of 1870 dealt him the supreme blow of making him blind. He visited Brazil in 1850–60, and made his début as a publicist in the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1863, by the publication of his notes upon that country. At the present writing he is occupying himself, in his quiet retreat among the Pyrenees, with the preparation of a work in 18mo, entitled La Terre, which, with two predecessors, Le Ciel and L'Homme, already issued, will compose a work in three volumes, to be called, Essai de philosophie naturelle—le Ciel, la Terre, l'Homme.

And now to yield the tribune to this instructive teacher.

H. S. O.

Adyar, Madras, 1887.

Chapter I

CHAPTER I.

Facts establishing the existence of the posthumous personality in man. It's various modes of manifestation.

Let us open this chapter with the posthumous history of the Abbé Peytou, one of the most curious that could be cited, as well from the long duration of the manifestations as the variety of their forms; of which nearly the whole population of the locality were witnesses. It will suffice for me to record the following facts, for which I am indebted to the kindness of M. Augé, late schoolmaster at Sentenac (Ariège), the parish of the Abbé Peytou. Being unable to visit the spot in person, I begged M. Augé to interrogate the elders of the village as to what they had seen or heard of the matter.

Here is his letter:

Sentenac de Sérou, 8th May, 1879.

Sir—

You have asked me to relate, for subsequent scientific discussion, the facts connected with ghostly visitors which are generally admitted by the most intelligent persons of Sentenac, and the circumstances of which incontestably prove their genuineness.

I shall narrate them exactly as they happened within the knowledge of perfectly credible witnesses.

I. When, some forty-five years ago, M. Peytou, curé of Sentonac, died, there was heard every evening, just after nightfall, the noise of somebody moving the chairs in the Presbytery, walking about, opening and shutting a snuff box and then making the sound of one taking a large pinch of snuff. All this, which lasted a long time, was of course immediately credited by the simpler and more timid among the villagers; others, who pretended to be shrewd common-sense fellows (esprits forts), were not in hurry to believe; they simply laughed at all who seemed or, rather, actually did believe that M. Peytou, the deceased curé, had returned. Two persons—M. Antoine Eycheinne, the mayor of the Commune, but who died about five years ago, and Baptiste Galy, who is still alive, the only two educated men in the neighbourhood and at the same time the most sceptical—wished to have personal proof whether all the alleged nocturnal disturbances in the Presbytery had any actual foundation in fact, or were but the effect of a weak fancy in persons easily frightened. One evening, each armed with a gun and a hatchet, resolved to pass the night in the housе, determining to know, in case they should hear any noise, whether it was made by the living or dead. They ensconced themselves in the kitchen, before a good fire, and began talking together about the simplicity of the villagers, and saying that, for their part, they could bear nothing, and would sleep comfortably upon the mattress they had taken the precaution to bring along. But suddenly, in the room just above them, they did hear noise, then the chairs moved, then some one walked about, descended the stairs, and came towards the kitchen. They arose, M. Eycheinne moved towards the kitchen door, holding his hatchet ready to strike whoever might enter, and M. Galy raised his gun to his shoulder.

The apparent walker, having come close to the kitchen door, took a pinch of snuff at least, the men on watch heard the identical sounds of a person who snuffs and then, instead of opening the kitchen door, the ghost passed into the drawing-room, where he seemed to be walking about. MM. Eycheinne and Galy, retaining their weapons, went out of the kitchen into the drawing-room and saw-absolutely nothing. They went upstairs and searched the rooms of the house from top to bottom, looking into every corner, hut found neither chairs nor any other things out of place. M. Eycheinne, who until now had been the most sceptical of all, then said to his companion: "My friend, no living person is making this disturbance, it is the dead; it is M. Peytou—it is his step and his way of taking snuff that we have heard. We can now sleep in peace."

II. Marie Calvet was the domestic of Monsieur Ferré, successor to M. Peytou, and a brave woman upon occasion—one who allowed nothing to disturb her, who believed nothing of the things they were gossiping about, and one who, to use the common phrase descriptive of a fearless person, would even sleep in a church. One evening, just at nightfall, the woman was occupied in the barn-passage cleaning her kitchen utensils. M. Ferré, her master, who had gone to visit the neighbouring curé, M. Desplas, had not yet returned. While the aforesaid Calvet was hard at work on her pots and pans, a curé passed before her without speaking a word. "Oh, you will not frighten me, master," she said, "I am not so stupid as to believe that Monsieur Peytou has come back!" Seeing that the priest who passed, and whom she took for her master, said nothing, Marie Calvet raised her head, turned it in his direction, and—saw nothing. Then she began to get scared, and quickly ran to tell the neighbours what had happened, and to beg Galy's wife to come and sleep with her.