APPARITION. 



APPARITION. 



sash about the middle ; and within the net- work appeared a gown of a 

 golden colour, with somewhat of a light striking through it " These 

 wumcsi told ma they would kill me if I told any person in the house 

 of <h** r being there, which put me in some consternation, and I made 

 a ssi mil sit up with me four nights in my chamber, before a fire, it 

 Wag in the Christmas holidays ; tolling no person of their being there. 

 One of thnso spirits in woman's dress lay down upon the bed by me 

 very night; and told me, if I slept, the spirits would kill me, which 



me waking for three nights. In the mean time, a near relation of 

 went (though unknown to me) to a physician of my acquaintance. 

 desiring him to prescribe me somewhat for sleeping, which he did. and 

 a sleeping potion was brought me, but I set it bv. Ix-ing very desirous 

 and inclined to sleep without it The fourth night I could hardly 

 forbear tfc-png, but the spirit, lying on the bed by me, told me again 

 I should be killed if I slept; whereupon I rose, and sat by the fire- 

 side, snd in a while returned to my bed ; and so I did a third time, but 

 was still threatened at before ; whereupon I grew impatient, and asked 

 the spirits what they would have t told them I had done the part of a 

 Christian, in humbling myself to Qod, and feared them not ; and rose 

 from my bed, took a cane, and knocked at the ceiling of my chamber ; 

 a near relation of mine lying then over me, who presently rose and 

 came down to me, at two o'clock in the morning ; to whom I said, you 

 have seen me disturbed these four days past, and that I have not slept 

 the ones ion of it was, that five spirits, which are now in the room with 

 me, have threatened to kill me if I told any person of their being here, 

 or if I slept ; but I am not able to forbear sleeping longer, and acquaint 

 you with it, and now stand in defiance of them : and thus I exerted 

 myself about them ; and, notwithstanding their continued threats, I 

 slept very well the next night, and continued so to do, though they 

 continued with me above three months, day and night." 



WV have seen that some mind*, such as that of Nicolai, have a strong 

 natural tendency to form vivid pictorial images of everything that inter- 

 ests them; in others, there is a like tendency to the intense ren 

 of past impressions. " I remember," says Dr. Ferriar, " that, about the 

 age of fourteen, if ever I had been viewing any interesting object in the 

 course of the day, such as a romantic ruin, a fine seat, or a review of a 

 body of troops, as soon as evening came on, if I had occasion to go into 

 a dark room, the whole scene was brought before my eyes, with a 

 brilliancy equal to what it had possessed in daylight, and remained 

 visible for several minutes. I have no doubt that dimn.il and frightful 

 images have been often presented to the mind in the same manner 

 after scenes of domestic affliction or public honor." Certain states of 

 the body, and certain affections of the mind, powerfully predispose to 

 the intense renovation of past impressions, however those impressions 

 have been induced, and whatever their nature, the immediate exciting 

 cause of the renovation being often some external object acting upon 

 the senses or upon the imagination under circumstances favourable to 

 the illusion. A Urge class of spectral illusions are referable to this 

 head, of which the following may be taken as an example. A gentle- 

 man was benighted, while travelling alone, in a remote part of the 

 hjghUmU of Scotland, and was compelled to ask shelter for the evening 

 at a small lonely hut. When he was to be conducted to his bed-room, 

 the landlady observed, with mysterious reluctance, that he would find 

 the window very insecure. On examination, part of the wall appeared 

 to have been broken down to enlarge the opening. After some inquiry, 

 be waa told that a pedlar, who had lodged in the room a short time 

 before, had committed suicide, sod was found hanging behind the door 

 in the morning. According to the superstition of the country, it was 

 dssmed improper to remove the body through the door of the house ; 

 snd to convey it through the window was impossible, without removing 

 part of the wall. Some hints were dropped that the room had been 

 subsequently haunted by the poor man's spirit. My friend laid his 

 arms, properly prepared against intrusion of any kind, by the bed-side, 

 and retired to rest, not without some degree of apprehension. lie wss 

 visited in a dream by a frightful apparition, and, awaking in agony, 

 found himself sitting up in bed, with a pistol grasped in his right 

 hand. On easting a fearful glance round the room, he discovered by 

 the moonlight a corpse dressed in a shroud, reared erect against the 

 wall close by the window. With much difficulty he summoned up 

 resolution to approach the dismal object, the features of which, and 

 the minutest parts of its funeral apparel, he perceived distinctly. He 

 pasted one hand over it, felt nothing, and staggered back to bed. 

 After a long interval, and much untnnlns with himself, he renewed 

 his investigation, and at length discovered that the object of his terror 

 wss produced by the moonbeams, forming a long, bright image, through 

 the broken window, on which hit fancy, impressed by his dream, had 

 pfaUued, with mischievous accuracy, the ttnsamento of a body prepared 

 far interment. Powerful associations of terror, 



. i 



JT, in this 



:, . : m ttd " 

 =.1 by the term predi 



! ..I 



st 



The peculiarity of constitution ex 



whether corpmeal or mental, is not only deeply implicated in 'the pro- 

 duction of a general tendency to the formation of these phantoms, but 

 it often determines even the specific character which each assumes, 

 the predisposition varies in each individual, the same morbid 

 I may conjure up images the moat diversified. The inhal 



.- . ,.:. , ing nrtui 

 but in some cases it prtitents to 

 frightful pictures, and produces on the system painful 



effects ; snd, for the same reason, the morbid cause, whatever 

 which gives rise to spectral illusions, may in one excite soothing snd 

 delightful visions, and in another hideous and appalling njiectrns. The 

 daughter of Sir Charles Lee "saw, about two of the clock in the 

 morning, the apjisrition of a little woman between her curtain and her 



pillow, who told her she was her (deceased) ther: that she was 



happy, and by twelve of the clock that day she -]>..nM I* with her. 



i-'ii ne knocked up her maid, called for her clothes, and 

 she was dressed she went into her closet, and came not out again till 

 nine, and then brought with her a letter, sealed, to her fail: 

 it to her aunt, the Lady Everard, told her what had happened, and 

 desired, that as soon ss she was dead it might be sent to him. she 

 desired that the chaplain might be called to read prayers ; and when 

 prayers were ended, she took her guitar and psalm-book, and sat down 

 upon a chair without arms and played and sang so melodiously and 

 admirably, that her music-master, who was then there, admired at it. 

 And near the stroke of twelve, she rose and sat herself down in a great 

 chair with arms, and fetching a strong breathing or two, inim. 

 expired." In this case, a spectral illusion occurring in a trndcr and 

 susceptible frame, produced such a powerful impression ii|>on the 

 imagination, as absolutely to destroy life. The contrast to tin.- is tin- 

 case of the sturdy assessor to the Westminster Assembly, -. 



from the arch-fiend himself, and whom lie treated with a cool 

 contempt, which must have astonished Kin Satanic majesty. " The 

 devil, in a light night, stood by his bedside. The assessor 1 

 awhile, whether he would say or do anything ; and then said, ' If thou 

 hast nothing to do, I have;' and so turned himself to sleep." 



There are many cases on record which directly prove that there is 

 often the closest possible connection between the very shape which 

 these phantasms assume and the images which have previously oc 

 the mind. A writer in the 16th volume of Nicholson's ' Philoy. i] 

 Journal,' who was haunted with the apparition of frightful spectres, 

 and who was at length struck with some connection between these 

 images and his previous thoughts, states, that he tried the expei imeiit , 

 whether, by fixing his meditation upon other objects, he could not 

 make these assume the place of the phantasms which persecuted him ; 

 that with this view, while the faces were flashing In-fore him, he 

 reflected upon landscapes and scenes of architectural grandeur : tli.it 

 ugly, after a considerable interval of time, a rural sc. -u- of hill,, 

 valleys, and fields appeared before him, which was succeeded l>y 

 another and another, in ceaseless succession; that the manner and 

 times of their respective appearance, duration, and vanishing, did not 

 sensibly differ from those of the faces ; that the scenes were calm and 

 still, without any strong lights or glare ; that, after a time, these 

 figures changed entirely, and consisted of books, parchments, or | 

 containing printed matter. The writer adds, " I was now BO well aware 

 of the connection of thought with these appearances, that, by fixing 

 my mind on the consideration of manuscript instead of printed typ.-, 

 the papers appeared, after a time, only with manuscript writing, and 

 afterwards, by the same process, instead of being erect, they 

 inverted or appeared upside down. The intelligent and philosophical 

 Nicolai saw nothing but men and women, in their natural form 

 and aspect, horses, dogs, and birds : the illusions of superstitious 

 minds consist of angels or devils, which assume all sorts of fantastic 

 shapes. Kemigius, who was a commissioner for the trial of w iteln - iu 

 Lomin, and who boasts that, in the course of fifteen years, I 

 condemned 900 criminals to the stoke, paid particular attention t.> 

 the form, features, and dress of demons ; yet his statements clearly 

 show that they did not vary from the gross sculptures and rviv 

 of the middle ages, and that recollected images only were pit 

 the persons labouring under the delusions for which they K 

 death. They are said to be black faced, with sunk but fiery eyes ; 

 their mouths wide, and smelling of sulphur; their hands hairy, with 

 claws; their feet horny and cloven. " A devil would appear like an 

 angel, seated in a fiery chariot ; or riding on an infernal dragon, and 

 carrying in his right hand a viper ; or assuming a lion's head, a goose's 

 feet, and a horse's tail ; or putting on a raven's head, and mounted on 

 a strong wolf; with innumerable other fantastic shapes of a similar 

 description. These mysterious and frightful images were not only 

 made familiar to the imaginations of the people, but even to their very 



senses. They could go neither into their dwellings nor their temples 

 without seeing them ; they were sculptured on the walls of the church, 

 they were carved on the wainscots of the domestic halls, and the air 

 and the earth were peopled with them ; there was not a hill nor a 

 valley, not a wood nor a grove, not a fountain nor a stream, in which 

 they were not seen and heard, and communed with. N pl.-u3o was 

 void," says Burton, "but all full of spirits. devils. or other inhabitants; 

 not so much as a hair breadth was empty in heaven, earth. < 

 above or under the earth.' "i>u r observes ](. 



Scot, "have so terrified us with an ugly devil, having liorn- 

 head, fler in his mouth, and n tail in his breath, eiee like a bacon, 

 fangs like a dog, claws like a beare, a skin like a niger, and a 

 roaring like a lion, th.it wo st-nt and are afraid when we hear any miu 



Wh.it wonder that thow hideous phantoms should make an indelible 

 impression on weak and ignorant mind ...n.l exert, an inllu.-n. 

 over strong and cultivated understanding*, which their U-tter reason 

 could not at all times resist ! What wonder when, from corporeal 



