GHOSTS FROM DREAMLAND 



this material world ; and akin to their attitude was that 

 of those other philosophers who in one measure or 

 another doubted the ghosts. For people in general, the 

 question was probably never so much as raised. 



And for that matter, we may come very much nearer 

 home for equal credulity, with evidence so demon- 

 strative that none can question it. It is found in the 

 records of mediaeval times records that tell of the 

 executions for witchcraft. No one who reads these 

 records can doubt that the magistrates and prosecutors 

 of that time in common with the greater number of 

 their educated comtemporaries fully believed in the 

 existence of the occult practices which they charged 

 against their unfortunate victims. 



The last execution for witchcraft took place about 

 two hundred years ago. But long after people had 

 ceased to believe in the active influence of witches, 

 they continued to believe in so-called demoniacal 

 possession. To the eighteenth century humanitarian, 

 even, the insane man was one possessed of an evil 

 spirit. 



Such then is the train of ghosts that has marched 

 down the ages in the wake of the phantom dream-host 

 of our primeval ancestor. Said I not truly when I 

 said that the influence of the sub-conscious sleep-self 

 has been almost as potent as the influence of the waking 

 mind? For all these hosts that so dominated the 

 thought of Egyptian and Babylonian, of Greek and 

 Mediaevalist are pure figments of the imagination. 

 This is a world of realities, not a world of ghosts. The 

 phantom host that has preyed on the fancies of so many 



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