The Book of Dreams and Ghosts, by Andrew Lang
Arbuthnot on Political Lying. Begin with “Great Swingeing Falsehoods”. The Opposite Method to be used in telling Ghost Stones. Begin with the more Familiar and Credible. Sleep. Dreams. Ghosts are identical with Waking Dreams. Possibility of being Asleep when we think we are Awake. Dreams shared by several People. Story of the Dog Fanti. The Swithinbank Dream. Common Features of Ghosts and Dreams. Mark Twain’s Story. Theory of Common-sense. Not Logical. Fulfilled Dreams. The Pig in the Palace. The Mignonette. Dreams of Reawakened Memory. The Lost Cheque. The Ducks’ Eggs. The Lost Key. Drama in Dreams. The Lost Securities. The Portuguese Gold-piece. St. Augustine’s Story. The Two Curmas. Knowledge acquired in Dreams. The Assyrian Priest. The Déjà Vu. “I have been here before.” Sir Walter’s Experience. Explanations. The Knot in the Shutter. Transition to Stranger Dreams.
Veracious Dreams. Past, Present and Future unknown Events “revealed”. Theory of “Mental Telegraphy” or “Telepathy” fails to meet Dreams of the unknowable Future. Dreams of unrecorded Past, how alone they can be corroborated. Queen Mary’s Jewels. Story from Brierre de Boismont. Mr. Williams’s Dream before Mr. Perceval’s Murder. Discrepancies of Evidence. Curious Story of Bude Kirk. Mr. Williams’s Version. Dream of a Rattlesnake. Discrepancies. Dream of the Red Lamp. “Illusions Hypnagogiques.” The Scar in the Moustache. Dream of the Future. The Coral Sprigs. Anglo-Saxon Indifference. A Celtic Dream. The Satin Slippers. Waking Dreams. The Dead Shopman. Dreams in Swoons.
Transition from Dreams to Waking Hallucinations. Popular Scepticism about the Existence of Hallucinations in the Sane. Evidence of Mr. Francis Galton, F.R.S. Scientific Disbelief in ordinary Mental Imagery. Scientific Men who do not see in “the Mind’s Eye”. Ordinary People who do. Frequency of Waking Hallucinations among Mr. Gallon’s friends. Kept Private till asked for by Science. Causes of such Hallucinations unknown. Story of the Diplomatist. Voluntary or Induced Hallucinations. Crystal Gazing. Its Universality. Experience of George Sand. Nature of such Visions. Examples. Novelists. Crystal Visions only “Ghostly” when Veracious. Modern Examples. Under the Lamp. The Cow with the Bell Historical Example. Prophetic Crystal Vision. St. Simon The Regent d’Orléans. The Deathbed of Louis XIV. References for other Cases of Crystal Visions.
Veracious Waking Hallucinations not recognised by Science; or explained by Coincidence, Imposture, False Memory. A Veracious Hallucination popularly called a Wraith or Ghost. Example of Unveracious Hallucination. The Family Coach. Ghosts’ Clothes and other Properties and Practices; how explained. Case of Veracious Hallucination. Riding Home from Mess. Another Case. The Bright Scar. The Vision and the Portrait. Such Stories not usually believed. Cases of Touch: The Restraining Hand. Of Hearing: The Benedictine’s Voices; The Voice in the Bath-room. Other “Warnings”. The Maoris. The Man at the Lift. Appearances Coincident with Death. Others not Coincident with Anything.
“Spirits of the Living.” Mistakes of Identity. Followed by Arrival of Real Person. “Arrivals.” Mark Twain’s Phantom Lady. Phantom Dogcart. Influence of Expectant Attention. Goethe. Shelley. The Wraith of the Czarina. Queen Elizabeth’s Wraith. Second Sight. Case at Ballachulish. Experiments in sending Wraiths. An “Astral Body”. Evidence discussed. Miss Russell’s Case. “Spirits of the Dying.” Maori Examples. Theory of Chance Coincidence. In Tavistock Place. The Wynyard Wraith. Lord Brougham’s Wraith Story. Lord Brougham’s Logic. The Dying Mother. Comparison with the Astral Body. The Vision of the Bride. Animals as affected by the supposed Presence of Apparitions. Examples. Transition to Appearances of the Dead.
Transition to Appearances of the Dead. Obvious Scientific Difficulties. Purposeless Character of Modern Ghosts. Theory of Dead Men’s Dreams. Illustrated by Sleep-walking House-maid. Purposeful Character of the Old Ghost Stories. Probable Causes of the Difference between Old and New Ghost Stories. Only the most Dramatic were recorded. Or the Tales were embellished or invented. Practical Reasons for inventing them. The Daemon of Spraiton. Sources of Story of Sir George Villier’s Ghost. Clarendon. Lilly, Douch. Wyndham. Wyndham’s Letter. Sir Henry Wotton. Izaak Walton. Anthony Wood. A Wotton Dream proved Legendary. The Ghost that appeared to Lord Lyttleton. His Lordship’s Own Ghost.
The Slaying of Sergeant Davies in 1749. The Trial. Scott’s Theory. Curious recent Corroboration of Sir Walter’s Hypothesis. Other Trials involving Ghostly Evidence. Their Want of Authenticity. “Fisher’s Ghost” criticised. The Aylesbury Murder. The Dog o’ Mause. The Ghosts of Dogs. Peter’s Ghost.
More Ghosts with a Purpose. Ticonderoga. The Beresford Ghost. Sources of Evidence. The Family Version. A New Old-Fashioned Ghost. Half-past One o’clock. Put out the Light!
Haunted Houses. Antiquity of Haunted Houses. Savage Cases. Ancient Egyptian Cases. Persistence in Modern Times. Impostures. Imaginary Noises. Nature of Noises. The Creaking Stair. Ghostly Effects produced by the Living but Absent. The Grocer’s Cough. Difficulty of Belief. My Gillie’s Father’s Story. “Silverton Abbey.” The Dream that Opened the Door. Abbotsford Noises. Legitimate Haunting by the Dead. The Girl in Pink. The Dog in the Haunted Room. The Lady in Black. Dogs Alarmed. The Dead Seldom Recognised. Glamis. A Border Castle. Another Class of Hauntings. A Russian Case. The Dancing Devil. The Little Hands.
The Shchapoff Story of a Peculiar Type. “Demoniacal Possession.” Story of Wellington Mill briefly analysed. Authorities for the Story. Letters. A Journal. The Wesley Ghost. Given Critically and Why. Note on similar Stories, such as the Drummer of Tedworth. Sir Waller Scott’s Scepticism about Nautical Evidence. Lord St. Vincent. Scott asks Where are his Letters on a Ghostly Disturbance. The Letters are now Published. Lord St. Vincent’s Ghost Story. Reflections.
A Question for Physicians. Professor William James’s Opinion. Hysterical Disease? Little Hands. Domestic Arson. The Wem Case. “The Saucepan began it.” The Nurse-maid. Boots Fly Off. Investigation. Emma’s Partial Confession. Corroborative Evidence. Question of Disease Repeated. Chinese Cases. Haunted Mrs. Chang. Mr. Niu’s Female Slave. The Great Amherst Mystery. Run as a Show. Failure. Later Miracles. The Fire-raiser Arrested. Parallels. A Highland Case. A Hero of the Forty-Five. Donald na Bocan. Donald’s Hymn. Icelandic Cases. The Devil of Hjalta-stad. The Ghost at Garpsdal.
The story of Glam
The Marvels at Fródá
Spiritualistic Floating Hands. Hands in Haunted Houses. Jerome Cardan’s Tale. “The Cold Hand.” The Beach-comber’s Tale. “The Black Dogs and the Thumbless Hand.” The Pakeha Maori and “The Leprous Hand”. “The Hand of the Ghost that Bit.”
PREFACE TO THE NEW IMPRESSION
Since the first edition of this book appeared (1897) a considerable number of new and startling ghost stories, British, Foreign and Colonial, not yet published, have reached me. Second Sight abounds. Crystal Gazing has also advanced in popularity. For a singular series of such visions, in which distant persons and places, unknown to the gazer, were correctly described by her, I may refer to my book, The Making of Religion (1898). A memorial stone has been erected on the scene of the story called “The Foul Fords” (p. 269), so that tale is likely to endure in tradition.
July, 1899.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The chief purpose of this book is, if fortune helps, to entertain people interested in the kind of narratives here collected. For the sake of orderly arrangement, the stories are classed in different grades, as they advance from the normal and familiar to the undeniably startling. At the same time an account of the current theories of Apparitions is offered, in language as free from technicalities as possible. According to modern opinion every “ghost” is a “hallucination,” a false perception, the perception of something which is not present.
It has not been thought necessary to discuss the psychological and physiological processes involved in perception, real or false. Every “hallucination” is a perception, “as good and true a sensation as if there were a real object there. The object happens not to be there, that is all.” {0a} We are not here concerned with the visions of insanity, delirium, drugs, drink, remorse, or anxiety, but with “sporadic cases of hallucination, visiting people only once in a lifetime, which seems to be by far the most frequent type”. “These,” says Mr. James, “are on any theory hard to understand in detail. They are often extraordinarily complete; and the fact that many of them are reported as veridical, that is, as coinciding with real events, such as accidents, deaths, etc., of the persons seen, is an additional complication of the phenomenon.” {0b} A ghost, if seen, is undeniably so far a “hallucination” that it gives the impression of the presence of a real person, in flesh, blood, and usually clothes. No such person in flesh, blood, and clothes, is actually there. So far, at least, every ghost is a hallucination, “that” in the language of Captain Cuttle, “you may lay to,” without offending science, religion, or common-sense. And that, in brief, is the modern doctrine of ghosts.
The old doctrine of “ghosts” regarded them as actual “spirits” of the living or the dead, freed from the flesh or from the grave. This view, whatever else may be said for it, represents the simple philosophy of the savage, which may be correct or erroneous. About the time of the Reformation, writers, especially Protestant writers, preferred to look on apparitions as the work of deceitful devils, who masqueraded in the aspect of the dead or living, or made up phantasms out of “compressed air”. The common-sense of the eighteenth century dismissed all apparitions as “dreams” or hoaxes, or illusions caused by real objects misinterpreted, such as rats, cats, white posts, maniacs at large, sleep-walkers, thieves, and so forth. Modern science, when it admits the possibility of occasional hallucinations in the sane and healthy, also admits, of course, the existence of apparitions. These, for our purposes, are hallucinatory appearances occurring in the experience of people healthy and sane. The difficulty begins when we ask whether these appearances ever have any provoking mental cause outside the minds of the people who experience them—any cause arising in the minds of others, alive or dead. This is a question which orthodox psychology does not approach, standing aside from any evidence which may be produced.
This book does not pretend to be a convincing, but merely an illustrative collection of evidence. It may, or may not, suggest to some readers the desirableness of further inquiry; the author certainly does not hope to do more, if as much.
It may be urged that many of the stories here narrated come from remote times, and, as the testimony for these cannot be rigidly studied, that the old unauthenticated stories clash with the analogous tales current on better authority in our own day. But these ancient legends are given, not as evidence, but for three reasons: first, because of their merit as mere stories; next, because several of them are now perhaps for the first time offered with a critical discussion of their historical sources; lastly, because the old legends seem to show how the fancy of periods less critical than ours dealt with such facts as are now reported in a dull undramatic manner. Thus (1) the Icelandic ghost stories have peculiar literary merit as simple dramatic narratives. (2) Every one has heard of the Wesley ghost, Sir George Villiers’s spectre, Lord Lyttelton’s ghost, the Beresford ghost, Mr. Williams’s dream of Mr. Perceval’s murder, and so forth. But the original sources have not, as a rule, been examined in the ordinary spirit of calm historical criticism, by aid of a comparison of the earliest versions in print or manuscript. (3) Even ghost stories, as a rule, have some basis of fact, whether fact of hallucination, or illusion, or imposture. They are, at lowest, “human documents”. Now, granting such facts (of imposture, hallucination, or what you will), as our dull, modern narratives contain, we can regard these facts, or things like these, as the nuclei which our less critical ancestors elaborated into their extraordinary romances. In this way the belief in demoniacal possession (distinguished, as such, from madness and epilepsy) has its nucleus, some contend, in the phenomena of alternating personalities in certain patients. Their characters, ideas, habits, and even voices change, and the most obvious solution of the problem, in the past, was to suppose that a new alien personality—a “devil”—had entered into the sufferer.
Again, the phenomena occurring in “haunted houses” (whether caused, or not, by imposture or hallucination, or both) were easily magnified into such legends as that of Grettir and Glam, and into the monstrosities of the witch trials. Once more the simple hallucination of a dead person’s appearance in his house demanded an explanation. This was easily given by evolving a legend that he was a spirit, escaped from purgatory or the grave, to fulfil a definite purpose. The rarity of such purposeful ghosts in an age like ours, so rich in ghost stories, must have a cause. That cause is, probably, a dwindling of the myth-making faculty.
Any one who takes these matters seriously, as facts in human nature, must have discovered the difficulty of getting evidence at first hand. This arises from several causes. First, the cock-sure common-sense of the years from 1660 to 1850, or so, regarded every one who had experience of a hallucination as a dupe, a lunatic, or a liar. In this healthy state of opinion, eminent people like Lord Brougham kept their experience to themselves, or, at most, nervously protested that they “were sure it was only a dream”. Next, to tell the story was, often, to enter on a narrative of intimate, perhaps painful, domestic circumstances. Thirdly, many persons now refuse information as a matter of “principle,” or of “religious principle,” though it is difficult to see where either principle or religion is concerned, if the witness is telling what he believes to be true. Next, some devotees of science aver that these studies may bring back faith by a side wind, and, with faith, the fires of Smithfield and the torturing of witches. These opponents are what Professor Huxley called “dreadful consequences argufiers,” when similar reasons were urged against the doctrine of evolution. Their position is strongest when they maintain that these topics have a tendency to befog the intellect. A desire to prove the existence of “new forces” may beget indifference to logic and to the laws of evidence. This is true, and we have several dreadful examples among men otherwise scientific. But all studies have their temptations. Many a historian, to prove the guilt or innocence of Queen Mary, has put evidence, and logic, and common honesty far from him. Yet this is no reason for abandoning the study of history.
There is another class of difficulties. As anthropology becomes popular, every inquirer knows what customs he ought to find among savages, so, of course, he finds them. In the same way, people may now know what customs it is orthodox to find among ghosts, and may pretend to find them, or may simulate them by imposture. The white sheet and clanking chains are forsaken for a more realistic rendering of the ghostly part. The desire of social notoriety may beget wanton fabrications. In short, all studies have their perils, and these are among the dangers which beset the path of the inquirer into things ghostly. He must adopt the stoical maxim: “Be sober and do not believe”—in a hurry.
If there be truth in even one case of “telepathy,” it will follow that the human soul is a thing endowed with attributes not yet recognised by science. It cannot be denied that this is a serious consideration, and that very startling consequences might be deduced from it; such beliefs, indeed, as were generally entertained in the ages of Christian darkness which preceded the present era of enlightenment. But our business in studies of any kind is, of course, with truth, as we are often told, not with the consequences, however ruinous to our most settled convictions, or however pernicious to society.
The very opposite objection comes from the side of religion. These things we learn, are spiritual mysteries into which men must not inquire. This is only a relic of the ancient opinion that he was an impious character who first launched a boat, God having made man a terrestrial animal. Assuredly God put us into a world of phenomena, and gave us inquiring minds. We have as much right to explore the phenomena of these minds as to explore the ocean. Again, if it be said that our inquiries may lead to an undignified theory of the future life (so far they have not led to any theory at all), that, also, is the position of the Dreadful Consequences Argufier. Lastly, “the stories may frighten children”. For children the book is not written, any more than if it were a treatise on comparative anatomy.
The author has frequently been asked, both publicly and privately: “Do you believe in ghosts?” One can only answer: “How do you define a ghost?” I do believe, with all students of human nature, in hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of all the senses. But as to whether such hallucinations, among the sane, are ever caused by psychical influences from the minds of others, alive or dead, not communicated through the ordinary channels of sense, my mind is in a balance of doubt. It is a question of evidence.
In this collection many stories are given without the real names of the witnesses. In most of the cases the real names, and their owners, are well known to myself. In not publishing the names I only take the common privilege of writers on medicine and psychology. In other instances the names are known to the managers of the Society for Psychical Research, who have kindly permitted me to borrow from their collections.
While this book passed through the press, a long correspondence called “On the Trail of a Ghost” appeared in The Times. It illustrated the copious fallacies which haunt the human intellect. Thus it was maintained by some persons, and denied by others, that sounds of unknown origin were occasionally heard in a certain house. These, it was suggested, might (if really heard) be caused by slight seismic disturbances. Now many people argue, “Blunderstone House is not haunted, for I passed a night there, and nothing unusual occurred”. Apply this to a house where noises are actually caused by young earthquakes. Would anybody say: “There are no seismic disturbances near Blunderstone House, for I passed a night there, and none occurred”? Why should a noisy ghost (if there is such a thing) or a hallucinatory sound (if there is such a thing), be expected to be more punctual and pertinacious than a seismic disturbance? Again, the gentleman who opened the correspondence with a long statement on the negative side, cried out, like others, for scientific publicity, for names of people and places. But neither he nor his allies gave their own names. He did not precisely establish his claim to confidence by publishing his version of private conversations. Yet he expected science and the public to believe his anonymous account of a conversation, with an unnamed person, at which he did not and could not pretend to have been present. He had a theory of sounds heard by himself which could have been proved, or disproved, in five minutes, by a simple experiment. But that experiment he does not say that he made.
This kind of evidence is thought good enough on the negative side. It certainly would not be accepted by any sane person for the affirmative side. If what is called psychical research has no other results, at least it enables us to perceive the fallacies which can impose on the credulity of common-sense.
In preparing this collection of tales, I owe much to Mr. W. A. Craigie, who translated the stories from the Gaelic and the Icelandic; to Miss Elspeth Campbell, who gives a version of the curious Argyll tradition of Ticonderoga (rhymed by Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, who put a Cameron where a Campbell should be); to Miss Violet Simpson, who found the Windham MS. about the Duke of Buckingham’s story, and made other researches; and to Miss Goodrich Freer, who pointed out the family version of “The Tyrone Ghost”.