DeDanaan

Filed by Aine MacDermot

THE FINAL TESTING OF THE X-QUANTITY

This chapter can now be brought to its logical conclusion by directly applying the results so far attained to our still vigorous x-quantity or residuum gathered out of the Fairy-Faith. We have, although hurriedly, blazed a rough pathway through the necessary parts of the jungle of scientific theories, and have arrived at a very considerable clearing made by the pioneers, the psychical researchers. We seem, in fact, to have arrived at a point in our long investigations where we can postulate scientifically, on the showing of the data of psychical research, the existence of such invisible intelligences as gods, genii, daemons, all kinds of true fairies, and disembodied men. It is not necessary to produce here, in addition to what already has been set forth, the very voluminous detailed evidence of psychical research as to the existence of such intelligences. The general statement may be made that there are hundreds of carefully proven cases of phenomena or apparitions precisely like many of those which the Celtic peoples attribute to fairies. 1 (p. 481)

Various explanations or theories are offered by our men of science as to what these invisible intelligences are, for none of our scientists would say that the dead alone are responsible, even in a majority of cases, for the observed phenomena and apparitions, but rather such beings as we call daemons, fairies, and elementals. M. Camille Flammarion says :– ‘The greater part of the phenomena observed — noises, movement of tables, confusions, disturbances, raps, replies to questions asked — are really childish, puerile, vulgar, often ridiculous, and rather resemble the pranks of mischievous boys than serious bona-fide actions. It is impossible not to notice this. Why should the souls of the dead amuse themselves in this way? The supposition seems almost absurd.’ 1 There could be no better description of the pranks which house-haunting fairies like brownies and Robin Goodfellows and elementals enjoy than this; and to suppose that the dead perform such mischievous and playful acts is, in truth, absurd. M. Flammarion also says :– ‘Two inescapable hypotheses present themselves. Either it is we who produce these phenomena’ (and this is not reasonable) ‘or it is spirits. But mark this well: these spirits are not necessarily the souls of the dead; for other kinds of spiritual beings may exist, and space may be full of them without our ever knowing anything about it, except under unusual circumstances. Do we not find in the different ancient literatures, demons, angels, gnomes, goblins, sprites, spectres, elementals, &c.? Perhaps these legends are not without some foundation in fact.’ 1

On ‘the phenomena of percussive and allied sound’ — such as fairies and the dead are said to produce — Sir William Crookes made this report :– ‘The intelligence governing the phenomena is sometimes manifestly below that of the medium. It is frequently in direct opposition to the wishes (p. 482) of the medium . . . . The intelligence is sometimes of such a character as to lead to the belief that it does not emanate from any person present.’ 1 In the case of the ‘medium’ Mr. Home, Sir William Crookes used mechanical tests and proved to his own satisfaction that physical objects moved without Mr. Home or any other person being in contact with them, 2 In the way that fairies are believed to move objects. These phenomena parallel remarkable ancient and modern examples of the same nature: e. g. in the affair at Cideville, France, brought before a magistrate, there is sworn evidence by reputable witnesses that pillows and coverlets floated away from a bed in which two children were asleep, and that furniture in the house moved without contact. 3 Mrs. Margaret Quinn, originally of Mullingar, but now of Howth, gave this remarkable testimony :– ‘When I was a little girl, I lived with my mother in West Meath, near Mullingar. A fort was at the back of our house, and mother used to hear music playing round our house all night, and she has seen them (the good people). It often happened there at home that we would have clothes out on the line and they would float off like a balloon at a time when there would not be a bit of wind and in daylight. My mother would come out and say, “God bless them (the good people). They will bring them back.” And then the clothes would slowly come floating back to the line.’ And in our chapter ii there is other testimony concerning objects moved without contact with human beings, either through the agency of fairies or of the dead. After due investigation of such and various other phenomena, Sir William Crookes, among other theories to explain them, gives this theory :– ‘The actions of a separate order of beings, living on this earth, but invisible and immaterial to us. Able, however, occasionally to manifest their presence. (p. 483) Known in almost all countries and ages as demons (not necessarily bad), gnomes, fairies, kobolds, elves, goblins, Puck, &c.’ 1 Here we seem to have what ought to be, by this stage of our study, proof of the Psychological Theory of the nature and origin of the Fairy-Faith.

Let us now draw a few of the direct parallels thus suggested. Consider first how a fairy is said to appear, how it is described, and how it vanishes, and then compare the facts stated in the following case of a phantom reported by Sir William Crookes 2 :– ‘In the dusk of the evening’ (just the time when fairies are most easily seen) during a séance with Mr. Home at my house, the curtains of a window about eight feet from Mr. Home were seen to move. A dark, shadowy, semi-transparent form, like that of a man, was then seen by all present standing near the window, waving the curtain with his hand. As we looked, the form faded away and the curtain ceased to move.’ The following — Mr. Home as in the former case being the ‘medium ‘ — is a still more striking instance :– ‘A phantom form came from a corner of the room, took an accordion in its hand, and then glided about the room playing the instrument. The form was visible to all present for many minutes, Mr. Home also being seen at the same time. On its coming rather close to a lady who was sitting apart from the rest of the company, she gave a slight cry, upon which it vanished.’ Compare the following types of observed phenomena by the same authority with what our Welsh witness from the Pentre Evan country said about death-candles (p. 155) :– ‘I have seen a luminous cloud floating upwards to a picture.’ Or, ‘I have more than once had a solid self-luminous body placed in my hand by a hand which did not belong to any person in the room. In the light I have seen a luminous cloud hover over a heliotrope on a side-table, break a sprig off, and carry the sprig to a lady; and on some occasions I have seen a similar luminous cloud visibly condense to the form of a hand and carry small objects about.’ Similar lights, parallel to the death lights or death tokens observed by Celtic percipients (p. 484) in Wales and in Brittany, and to what in Ireland are called the ‘lights’ of the ‘good people’ or ‘gentry’–all of which phenomena are traceable to no material causes as yet discovered–are reported by Iamblichus and others of his school. 1 And such lights are among phenomena best attested by modern psychical researchers. Supernormally produced music, said to have been produced by daemons, which is parallel to that called by several of our own percipients ‘fairy’ music, was also known to the Neo-Platonists; 1 and in the scientific investigations to which Mr. Home was subjected, musical sounds were heard which could not be attributed to any known agency. In haunted houses, as psychical research discovers, the rustling of dresses, movements of objects, and sounds, often occur spontaneously without and with the occurrence of apparitions; 1 and these phenomena are parallel to certain ones which we have had cited by Celtic percipients as due to fairies. Mr. Lang, too, has set forth clearly the probability of real ‘haunts’ or spirits possessing particular places — just as fairies are said to possess particular localities or buildings in Celtic lands.

The Report on the Census of Hallucination by Professor Sidgwick’s Committee has furnished data sufficiently good to convince many scientists that phantoms (comparable in a way with Irish banshees and the Breton Ankou) do appear to the living directly before a death as though announcing it. 2 (p. 485)

According to other equally reliable data, sometimes a phantasmal voice — like certain ‘fairy’ voices — has given news of a death.’ Myers and others have studied and recorded many cases of the dead appearing, as the Celtic dead appear when they have been taken to Fairyland. 1

In Phantasms of the Living, by Gurney, Myers, and Pod-more, the explanation of apparitions which are coincident with a death as being generated by a telepathic influence exerted upon the percipient by the dying friend, suggests the most rational interpretation of certain parallel kinds of apparitions, of the dead or of fairies, who, as in these last examples, appear dressed in garments. It is that all such apparitional appearances, coincident with a death or not, are equally due to a telepathic force exerted by an agency independent of the percipient. This outside force acts as a stimulus upon the nervous apparatus of the person to whom it is thus transmitted, and causes him to project out of some part of his own consciousness (which part may have passed over into the subconsciousness) a visualized image already impressed there. The image has natural affinity or correspondence with the outside stimulus which arouses it.

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