Science and Fairies

Footnotes

456:1 I am indebted to Mr. William McDougall, M.A., Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy in the University of Oxford, for having read through and criticized the first draft of this section; and while he is in no way responsible for the views set forth herein, nevertheless his suggestions for the improvement of their scientific framework have been of very great value. I must also express my obligation to him for having suggested through his Oxford lectures a good share of the important material interwoven into chapter xii touching the vitalistic view of evolution.

460:1 Cf. C. Du Prel, Philosophy of Mysticism (London, 1889), i. 7, II.

462:1 T. Ribot, The Diseases of Personality; Cf. J. L. Nevius, Demon Possession (London, 1897), pp. 234-5.

462:2 Proc. S. P. R. (London), v. 167; cf. A. Lang, Making of Religion, p. 64.

463:1 W. James, Confidences of a ‘Psychical Researcher’, in American Magazine (October 1909)

464:1 A. Lang, Cock Lane and Common Sense (London, 1896) p. 35.

464:2 According to Professor Freud, the well-known neurologist of Vienna, external stimuli are not admitted to the dream-consciousness in the same manner that they would be admitted to the waking-consciousness, but they are disguised and altered in particular ways (cf. S. Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 2nd ed., Vienna, 1909; and S. Ferenczi, The Psychological Analysis of Dreams, in Amer. Journ. Psych., April 1910, No. 2, xxi. 318, &c.).

465:1 Du Prel, op. cit., i. 135.

465:2 G. F. Stout, Mr. F. W. Myers on ‘Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death’, in Hibbert Journal, ii, No. I (London, October 1903), p. 56.

466:1 F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (London, 1903), i. 131.

466:2 R. L. Stevenson, Across the Plains, chapter on Dreams.

466:3 Stout, op. cit., p. 54.

467:1 Freud, op. cit.; Ferenczi, op. cit.; E. Jones, Freud’s Theory of Dreams, in Amer. Journ. Psych., April 1910, No. 2, xxi. 283-308.

468:1 ‘Freud, The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis, in Amer. Journ. Psych., April 1950, No. 2, xxi. 203.

468:2 Du Prel, op. cit., i. 33.

468:3 Myers, op. cit., i. 134.

469:1 Fechner, Zentralblatt für Anthropologie, p. 774; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., i. 92.

470:1 Haddock, Somnolism and Psychism, p. 253; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., i. 93.

470:2 Perty, Mystische Erscheinungen, i. 305 cf. Du Prel, op. cit., ii. 63.

470:3 Kerner, Seherin v. Prevovst, p. 196; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., ii. 65.

470:4 Chardel, Essai de Psychologie, p. 344; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., ii. 64.

470:5 Cf. Du Prel, op. cit., i. 88-9.

472:1 Myers, op. cit., chapter vi.

473:1 Stout, op. cit., pp. 64, 61-2.

474:1 Lang, Mr. Myers’s Theory of’ The Subliminal Self’, in Hibbert Journal, ii, No. 3 (April 1904), p. 530.

475:1 The peculiar and often unique characteristics of the fairy-folk of any given fairy-faith, as we have pointed out in chapter iii (pp. 233, 282), are to be regarded as being merely anthropomorphically coloured reflections of the social life or environment of the particular ethnic group who hold the particular fairy-faith; and, as Mr. Lang here suggests, when they are stripped of these superficial characteristics, which are due to such social psychology, they become ghosts of the dead or other spiritual beings.

Our own researches lead us to the conviction that behind the purely mythical aspect of these fairy-faiths there exists a substantial substratum of real phenomena not yet satisfactorily explained by science; that such phenomena have been in the past and are at the present time the chief source of the belief in fairies, that they are the foundation underlying all fairy mythologies. We need only refer to the following phenomena observed among Celtic and other peoples, and attributed by them to ‘fairy’ or ‘spirit’ agency: (1) music which competent percipients believe to be of non-human origin, and hence by the Celts called ‘fairy’ music, whether this be vocal or instrumental in sound; (2) the movement of objects without known cause; (3) rappings and other noises called ‘supernatural’ (cf. pp. 81 n., 481, 484, 488; also pp. 47, 57, 61, 67, 71, 72, 74, 88, 94, 98, 101, 120, 124, 125, 131, 132, 134, 139, 148, 156, 172, 181, 187, 213, 218, 220, &c.).

476:1 It is our hope that this book will help to lessen the marked deficiency of recorded testimony concerning ‘fairy’ beings and ‘fairy’ phenomena observed by reliable percipients. We have endeavoured to demonstrate that genuine ‘fairy’ phenomena and genuine ‘spirit’ phenomena are in most cases identical. Hence we believe that if ‘spirit’ phenomena are worthy of the attention of science, equally so are ‘fairy’ phenomena. The fairy-belief in its typical or conventional aspects (apart from the animism which we discovered at the base of the belief) is, as was pointed out in our anthropological examination of the evidence (pp. 281-2), due to a very complex social psychology. In this chapter we have eliminated all social psychology, as not being the essential factor in the Fairy-Faith. Therefore, from our point of view, Mr. Lang’s implied explanation of the typical fairy-visions, that they are due to ‘suggestion acting on the subconscious self’, does not apply to the rarer kind of fairy visions which form part of our x-quantity (see pp. 60-6, 83-4, &c.). If it does, then it also applies to all non-Celtic visions of spirits, in ancient and in modern times; and the animistic hypothesis now accepted by most psychical researchers, namely, that discarnate intelligences exist independent of the percipient, must be set aside in favour of the non-animistic hypothesis. If, on the other hand, it be admitted that ‘fairy’ phenomena are, as we maintain, essentially the same as ‘spirit’ phenomena, then the belief in fairies ceases to be purely mythical, and ‘fairy’ visions by a Celtic seer who is physically and psychically sound do not seem to arise from that seer’s suggestion acting on his own subconsciousness; but certain types of ‘fairy’ visions undoubtedly do arise from suggestion, coming from a ‘fairy’ or other intelligence, acting on the conscious or subconscious content of the percipient’s mind (cf. pp. 484-7).

477:1 Lang, Cock Lane And Common Sense, pp. 208, 35.

478:1 Sir Oliver Lodge, Psychical Research, in Harper’s Mag., August 1908 (New York and London).

479:1 Sir Oliver Lodge, The Survival of Man (London, 1909), p. 339.

479:2 James, op. cit., pp. 587-9.

480:1 Readers are referred to such authoritative works as the Phantasms of the Living (London, 1886), by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore; to the p. 481 Report on the Census of Hallucinations of Modern Spiritualism, by Professor Sidgwick’s Committee; to the Naturalisation of the Supernatural (New York and London, 1908), by F. Podmore; to the Survival of the Human Personality, by F. W. H. Myers; and other like works, all of which originate from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (London).

481:1 C. Flammarion, Mysterious Psychic Forces. pp. 441, 431.

482:1 Sir Wm. Crookes, Notes of an Enquiry into Phenomena called Spiritual, during the years 1870-73 (London), Part III, p. 87.

482:2 See Quart. Journ. Science (July 1871).

482:3 Cf. Lang, Cock Lane and Common Sense, p. 281; and for other cases of objects moved without contact see ib., pp. 50, 52, 53, 58, 122 ff. See also F. Podmore’s article on Poltergeists, in Proceedings S.P.R., xii. 45-115; and his Naturalisation of the Supernatural, chapter vii.

483:1 Sir Wm. Crookes, op. cit., Part III, p. 100.

483:2 Ib., p. 94.

484:1 Lang, Cock Lane and Common Sense, pp. 60, 81, 139, &c.

484:2 Using as a basis the data of Professor Sidgwick’s Committee and the results earlier obtained by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore (see Phantasms of the Living), Mr. William McDougall shows concisely the probability of an apparition appearing within twelve hours of the death of the individual whom it represents. He says:–’. . . of all recognized apparitions of living persons, only one in 19,000 may be expected to be a death-coincidence of this sort. But the census shows that of 1,300 recognized apparitions of living persons 30 are death-coincidences, and that is equivalent to 440 in 19,000. Hence, of recognized hallucinations, those coincident with death are 440 times more numerous than we should expect, if no causal relation obtained.’ And Mr. McDougall concludes: ‘. . . since good evidence of telepathic communication has been experimentally obtained, the least improbable explanation of these death-apparitions is that the dying person exerts upon his distant friend some telepathic influence which generates an hallucinatory perception of himself’ (Hallucinations, in Ency. Brit., 11th ed., xii. 863).

485:1 Myers, op. cit., ii. 65, 45 ff., 49 ff., &c.

488:1 Nevius, Demon Possession, Introduction, pp. iv, vii; pp. 240-2, 144-5. In accordance with all such phenomena, psychical researchers have logically called spirits manifesting themselves through the body of a living person possessing spirits. And as in the case of Chinese demon-possession, the phenomena of mediumship often result in the moral derangement, insanity, or even suicide on the part of ‘mediums’ who so unwisely exhibit it without special preparation or no preparation at all, and too often in complete ignorance of a possible gradual undermining of their psychic life, will-power, and even physical health. All of this seems to offer direct and certain evidence to sustain Christians and non-Christians in their condemnation of all forms of necromancy or calling up of spirits. The following statement will make our position towards mediumship of the most common kind clear:

In Druidism, for one example, disciples for training in magical sciences are said to have spent twenty years in severe study and special psychical training before deemed fit to be called Druids and thus to control daemons, ghosts, or all invisible entities capable of possessing living men and women. And even now in India and elsewhere there is reported to be still the same ancient course of severe disciplinary training for candidates seeking magical powers. But in modern Spiritualism conditions are altogether different in most cases, and ‘mediums’ instead of controlling with an iron will, as a magician does, spirits which become manifest in séances, surrender entirely their will-power and whole personality to them.