Part 10 (2/2)
The phenomena are certainly of a kind to encourage the savage theory of the wandering soul. How else, thinkers would say, can the seer visit the distant place or person, and correctly describe men and scenes which, in the body, he never saw? Or they would encourage the Polynesian belief that the 'spirit' of the thing or person looked for is suspended by a G.o.d over the water, crystal, blood, ink, or whatever it may be. Thus, to anthropologists, the discovery of crystal-gazing as a thing widely diffused and still flouris.h.i.+ng ought to be grateful, however much they may blame my childish credulity. I may add that I have no ground to suppose that crystal-gazing will ever be of practical service to the police or to persons who have lost articles of portable property. But I have no objection to experiments being made at Scotland Yard.[20]
[Footnote 1: Information, with a photograph of the stones, from a correspondent in West Maitland, Australia.]
[Footnote 2: _Report Ethnol. Bureau_, 1887-88, p. 460; vol. ii. p. 69.
Captain Bourke's volume on _The Medicine Men of the Apaches_ may also be consulted.]
[Footnote 3: Fitzroy, _Adventure_, vol. ii. p. 389.]
[Footnote 4: _L'Histoire de la grand Ile Madagascar_, par le Sieur de Flacourt. Paris, 1661, ch. 76. Veue de deux Navires de France predite par les Negres, avant que l'on en peust scavoir des Nouvelles, &c.]
[Footnote 5: _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 341.]
[Footnote 6: _J.A.I_., November 1894, p. 155. Ryckov is cited; _Zhurnal_, p. 86.]
[Footnote 7: _Rites and Laws of the Yncas_, Christoval de Molina, p. 12.]
[Footnote 8: See Miss X's article, S.P.R. _Proceedings_, v. 486.]
[Footnote 9: Op. cit. v. 505.]
[Footnote 10: If any reader wishes to make experiments, he, or she, should not be astonished if the first crystal figure represents 'the sheeted dead,' or a person ill in bed. For some reason, or no reason, this is rather a usual prelude, signifying nothing.]
[Footnote 11: Sunday afternoon. It is not implied that the pictures on Friday were prophetic. Probably Miss Rose saw what Miss Angus had seen by aid of 'suggestion.']
[Footnote 12: Miss Angus could not be sure of the colour of the hair.]
[Footnote 13: The position was such that Miss Angus could not see the face of the lady.]
[Footnote 14: I saw the photographs.]
[Footnote 15: I have been shown the letter of January 20, which confirmed the evidence of the crystal pictures. The camp was formed for official purposes in which Mr. Clifton was concerned. A letter of February 9 unconsciously corroborates.]
[Footnote 16: The incident of the feet occurred at 4.30 to 7.30 P.M. The crystal picture was about 10 P.M.]
[Footnote 17: Miss Angus had only within the week made the acquaintance of Mrs. c.o.c.kburn and the Bissetts. Of these relations of theirs at a distance she had no knowledge.]
[Footnote 18: I have seen a photograph of this gentleman, Major Hamilton, which tallies with the full description given by Miss Angus, as reported by Mrs. Bissett. All the proper names here, as throughout, are altered.
This account I wrote from the verbal statement of Mrs. Bissett. It was then read and corroborated by herself, Mr. Bissett, Mr. c.o.c.kburn, Mrs. c.o.c.kburn, and Miss Angus, who added dates and signatures.]
[Footnote 19: The letters attesting each of these experiments are in my possession. The real names are in no case given in this account, by my own desire, but (with permission of the persona concerned) can be communicated privately.]
[Footnote 20: The faculty of seeing 'fancy pictures' in the gla.s.s is far from uncommon. I have only met with three other persons besides Miss Angus, two of them men, who had any success in 'telepathic'
crystal-gazing. In correcting 'revises' (March 16), I leant that the brother of Mr. Pembroke (p. 105) wrote from Cairo on January 27. The 'scry' of January 23 represented his s.h.i.+p in the Suez Ca.n.a.l. He was, as his letter shows, in quarantine at Suez, at Moses's Wells, from January 25 to January 26. Major Hamilton (pp. 109, 110), on the other hand, left Bombay, indeed, but not by sea, as in the crystal-picture. See Appendix C.
Mr. Starr, an American critic, adds Cherokees, Aztecs, and Tonkaways to the ranks of crystal gazers.]
VI
ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS
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