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Title: Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men

Author: John Harris

Release Date: November 3, 2004 [EBook #13934]

Language: English

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INFERENCES FROM HAUNTED HOUSES AND HAUNTED MEN

BY THE HONBLE. JOHN HARRIS

1901

Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men

The lack of interest in so-called psychical matters is somewhat surprising.

There is, however, more hope of the clearing up of the scientific aspects of these phenomena than ever before.

Sir William Crookes, late President of the British Association, has no doubt that thoughts and images may be transferred from one mind to another without the agency of the recognised organs of sense, and that knowledge may enter the human mind without being communicated in any hitherto known or recognised ways! The word recognised is important; perhaps "not by the recognised action of the organs of sense," would be a better expression.

In the "Alleged Haunting of B—— House," p. 33, Miss Freer says: "Apparitions are really hallucinations or false impressions upon the senses, created so far as originated by any external cause, by other minds either in the body or out of the body, which are themselves invisible in the ordinary and physical sense of the term, and really acting through some means at present very imperfectly known." This would include hypnotism at a distance, but also perhaps spirits.

Dr. Gowers has recently (reported in the Lancet), in a speech at University College, pointed out the close connection of the optic and auditory nerves with regard to cases of deafness.

The young lady who, when an attempt at transferring the sight of a candle to her was made, heard the word candle or something like it, the first letter doubtful, shows that thought transfer is to the ear as well as to the eye, or at least goes over from one to the other; she says, "You know I as often hear the name of the object as see the thing itself." This may have been from a mental effort to receive distinctly an inefficiently acute impression of her friend's. She saw a jug seen by her friend, and heard the train she heard. The colour of the jug differed a little. The distance fourteen miles. Audible speech might thus be helped by despatching a picture of the idea from a distance. Other people must be like Miss Campbell.[1] There must be material force in this, since a thought heightens the temperature of the brain. But this force has its limits of distance, &c.

[Footnote 1: Podmores "Studies," p. 228.]

To connect apparitions with hypnotism.

In their case, and in so-called spiritual experiences (spiritistic is the better word), there is generally a preceding feeling like entering an icehouse.[2] This is described as occurring to the butler of the Haunted House at B——, Harold Sanders, in 1896; to Mr. "Endell," and to others. This chill is surely identical with, or very closely related to, the chill of hypnotism mentioned by Binet and Féré.[3] The balance of the circulation has been interfered with. They state that this is the only symptom by which any one can tell he has been hypnotised, and that this is not always present.

[Footnote 2: "Alleged Haunting," &c., pp. 50, 139.]

[Footnote 3: "Animal Magnetism," chap. xiv.]

In continuous slight hypnotism, chills on part of the scalp, part of the shoulder, part of the face, or the ribs, etc., may be experienced; they are possibly signs of slackening hypnotic power.

There is another symptom, hyperaesthesia of the eye, which Binet and Féré omit; this is extremely rare among men, and with women results from local affection. The symptom probably appears in hypnotic cases from the cutaneous lesser sciatic nerve, which is connected with the nerves of the sexual system, being affected.

The chill and the hyperaesthesia of the eyes can be so severe that a doctor or an oculist would be consulted.

The feeling of gravel in the eye is probably produced by light falling through chinks on the eye when hyperaesthetic during sleep—the lids may be slightly tightened, as it were; this is perhaps a nearer approach to a profounder hypnotism.

"During actual hypnosis," says Mr. Harry Vincent, "frequently the contraction of the muscles is so obvious that the subject appears to be indulging in a grim smile."[4]

[Footnote 4: "Elements of Hypnotism," p. 99.]

I venture to call attention to the grim smile worn by Charles Kingsley in the portrait which prefaces the large edition of his Life and Letters. Charles Kingsley suffered from frequent fits of exhaustion; these are often the results of excessive hypnotism after the limit (at the fifth or sixth effort) of the hypnotist's power has been reached. His brother Henry, we learn from Mr. Kegan Paul's "Memoirs," was excessively hypnotisable. His character was weaker perhaps than Charles's, but the geniality of his writings bears testimony to his remarkable ability.

He was only rescued from a condition little better than a tramp's by a kind friend. Charles's life was perhaps shortened by hypnotism. One of Kingsley's neighbours at Eversley was the late Sir W. Cope. The elder son of this gentleman, when Secretary of Legation at Stockholm, came to a tragic end. He suddenly, when out walking with a friend, although his health had been apparently perfect, began to shout and wave his umbrella. He was put under the care of attendants, as he was considered to be temporarily insane. He jumped out of a window and was killed. Voices insulting or threatening him, and with such scoundrels speech would be of something dreadful, would provoke or frighten the unhappy man.

About two years later a distinguished priest, well known in London, also suddenly waved an umbrella and behaved as if he were angry. But he showed hardly any sign of insanity, and on applying to the proper court for release from supervision, was declared sane by a jury.

Strength of mind and religious feeling doubtless saved him from the fate of Mr. Cope. A brave man can resist such an attack under favourable circumstances.

It is well known to those who have read the Biography of Lawrence Oliphant, and that of Dr. Anna Kingsford by Professor Maitland, that Lawrence Oliphant, who became a Shaker (a member of a sect who employ hypnotism, as Mr. H. Vincent describes, to bind their neophytes to them),[5] wrote commonplace vulgar verse on religious subjects, although himself a highly cultivated literary man.

[Footnote 5: "Elements of Hypnotism," Appendix, note 3, p. 270.]

Hypnotism doubtless led to this; the verse thought out in some vulgar Shaker's mind was transferred to Oliphant. Not only was Oliphant induced to become a Shaker, but his wife became one also, and both sacrificed much money to the society and