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 Marine Pollution
Sources, Fate and Effects of
Pollutants in Coastal
Ecosystems
Ricardo Beiras
University of Vigo
Elsevier
Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United Kingdom
50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the
Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center
and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.
This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other
than as may be noted herein).

Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our
understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any
information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods
they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a
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Dedication

To Domingo
Foreword

Marine pollution is at present part of the media circus. Who has not been
shocked by the images of moribund seabirds spreading their coal-black wings,
or dolphins strained on a plastic-invaded beach? The advantage of this media
focus is the public support gained for pollution remediation and prevention
initiatives, but the disadvantage is the lack of scientific rigor in the debates
concerning pollution. According to H.L. Windom, “the focus of attention on
coastal [pollution] problems has been based more upon public perceptions
than on sound scientific evaluations of sources, fates and environmental
effects.”1 J. S. Gray illustrated the same problem with the case of the planned
dumping of the disused oil rig Brent Spar in deep water off the Scottish coast.
Eventually the dumping was stopped after a Greenpeace campaign against it,
but the decision did not include any rational elements since neither
Greenpeace nor Shell gave any data on the environmental risk of the
optionsdsinking or disposal on shoredand the decision-makers did not
consider any scientific study, though they were available.2
In 2009, at the onset of the economic crisis in Spain, President Zapatero
declared on TV, “I want to make a call to the citizens [.] they must keep on
consuming.” Consumption is considered by conventional wisdom as the en-
gine of the economy. In fact, this ignores the most basic principles of ther-
modynamics. Since the 1980s, E. Odum called our attention to the need to
change focus from maximizing production (and thus consumption of re-
sources and generation of wastes) to maximizing efficiency, the ratio between
production and consumption. Slowlydperhaps too slowly?dthis true wisdom
permeates societies, but the effects on the decision-makers are so far more
cosmetic than real. The part of this question that is scientists’ responsibility is to
conduct hard science to study environmental issues. Scientists replaced priests
as advisors of the empowered leaders only because their predictions were more
reliable. The higher the certitude of the scientific predictions the more influ-
ential they will be for decision-makers. Ecotoxicology must be just as rigorous
as medicine, and nobody conceives discussing in the media the diagnostic of an
ill patient or the most suitable drug and correct dose to be prescribed.
xiii
xiv Foreword

In fact, this book has a practical and applied vocation. I am an empirical sci-
entist fascinated by the elegant simplicity of the scientific method based on
contrasting hypotheses at the light of observation and experimentation. Excess
of theoretical apparatus has been identified as one of the limitations of
ecological sciences, and the debates on the effects of environmental factors,
including the nonconcept of “global change,” on the stability of ecosystems
seem to me a good example of this. As R.H. Peters complained, logic, i.e., the set
of possible alternatives, replaced theory, the set of probable alternatives, and
this eventually constrained some ecological theories to tautological formula-
tions whose implications are included in the premises, and thus not suitable to
experimental contrast.3
This book intends to be useful to a wide range of readers: academic audiences
seeking a basic theoretical background on marine pollution, but also pro-
fessionals involved in the daily routine of managing the marine environment
and seeking applied knowledge related to specific issues on pollution preven-
tion, monitoring, effects, and abatement. As a result, the book admits two levels
of reading. The advanced reader is offered with a broad selection of specialized
scientific references that back the statements made throughout the text, listed at
the end of each chapter. For didactic purposes, the learning reader can ignore
those references and look for more basic information in the Suggested Further
Reading section, and review the essential contents in the Key Ideas section at
the end of each chapter.
In short, the hopefully not-too-ambitious aim of this book is to provide a
rigorous tool to train marine ecotoxicologists and contribute to make them
familiar with the contrasted theories and quality-controlled methods that may
provide solid scientific foundations to their current or future work.
Ricardo Beiras

References
1. Windom HL. Contamination of the Marine Environment from Land-based Sources. Marine
Pollution Bulletin 1992;25(1e4):32e6.
2. Gray JS. Chapter 17. Risk assessment and management in the exploitation of the seas. In:
Calow P, editor. Handbook of environmental risk assessment and management. Oxford:
Blackwell Science; 1998. p. 453e74.
3. Peters RH. A critique for ecology. Cambridge University Press; 1991.
Acknowledgments

I thank my colleagues Marion Nipper, Paula Sánchez Marín, Juan Bellas, Inés
Viana, Filipe M.G. Laranjeiro, Miren B. Urrutia, Enrique Navarro, Silvia
Messinetti, Leo Mantilla, Iria Durán, and Leticia Vidal Liñán for their useful
comments and discussion on several parts of this book. Many ancient and
hardly available bibliographic references were readily obtained thanks to the
efficient work of the librarians at the University of Vigo. I apologize to Leticia,
Xulia, Roi, and Valentina for the time taken for this project.

xv
Abbreviations and Symbols

4-MBC 4-Methylbenzylidene camphor

ABS Alkyl-benzene sulfonate
AChE Acetylcholinesterase
AE Absorption efficiency/assimilation efficiency
AF Assessment factor
AhR Aryl hydrocarbon receptor
ALA-D d-Aminolevulinic acid dehydratase
Ant Anthracene
ANZECC Australian and New Zealand Environment Conservation Council
ASP Amnesic shellfish poison
ASTM American Society for Testing and Materials
ATP Adenosine triphosphate
AVS Acid-volatile sulfide
BaA Benzo-a-Anthracene
BAC Background Assessment Concentration
BAF Bioamplification Factor
BaP Benzo-a-pyrene
BbF Benzo-b-Fluoranthene
BC Background concentration
BCF Bioconcentration factor
BDE Brominated diphenylether
BeP Benzo-e-Pyrene
BEWS Biological Early Warning System
BghiP Benzo-g,h,i-Perylene
BkF Benzo-k-Fluoranthene
BMF Biomagnification factor
BMFTW Trophic web biomagnification factor
BOD Biological oxygen demand
BOD5 5-days biological oxygen demand
BODL Ultimate biological oxygen demand
BP Benzophenone
BPA Bisphenol A
(Continued)
xvii
xviii Abbreviations and Symbols

BTEX Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene

CAT Catalase
CB Chlorinated biphenyl
CBB Critical body burden
CCME Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment
cDNA Complementary deoxyribonucleic acid
CEMP Coordinated Environmental Monitoring Programme
CEP Caribbean Environment Programme
CF Contamination factor
CFU Colony-forming units
Chry Chrysene
CLC Civil liability convention
COD Chemical oxygen demand
CPI Chemical pollution index
Cpn60 Chaperon 60
CYP Cytochrome P450
Cys Cysteine
DDD Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane
DDE Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene
DDT Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane
DEHP Diethylhexyl phthalate
DIN Dissolved inorganic nitrogen
DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid
DO Dissolved oxygen
DOC Dissolved organic carbon
DOM Dissolved organic matter
DW Dry weight
EC European Commission
EC50 Median effective concentration
ECHA European Chemicals Agency
EDC Endocrine disrupting compound
EEA European Environment Agency
EF Enrichment factor
EHMC Ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate
ELISA Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
ELS Early life stages
EMSA European Maritime Safety Agency
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
EQC Environmental quality criteria
EQC/S Environmental quality criteria and standards
EQR Ecological quality ratio
EQS Environmental quality standards
 Abbreviations and Symbols xix

ER Estrogen receptor
ERA Ecological risk assessment
ERL Effects range low
ERM Effects range median
EROD Ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase
EU European Union
FC Fecal coliforms
FIAM Free ion activity model
fL Weight proportion of lipids
Flu Fluoranthene
fOC Weight proportion of organic carbon
FR Filtering rate
GPx Glutathione peroxydase
GSH Glutathione
GST Glutathione transferase
HBCD Hexabromocyclododecane
HC5 Hazard concentration for 5% of species
HELCOM Helsinki Commission
HRA Health risk assessment
HS Shannon diversity index
ICES International Council for the Exploration of the Sea
IF Interaction factor
IFREMER Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer
IMO International Maritime Organization
IOPC International oil pollution compensation
IPy Indenepyrene
IR Ingestion rate
ISO International Organization for Standardization
KOC Organic carbon-water partition coefficient
KOW Octanol-water partition coefficient
LAS Linear alkylbenzene sulfonate
LC50 Median lethal concentration
LMS Lysosomal membrane stability
LW Lipid weight
MDS Multidimensional scaling
MeeHg Methylmercury
MFO Mixed function oxidase or monooxygenase
MLVSS Mixed liquor volatile suspended solids
MPN Most probable number
mRNA Messenger ribonucleic acid
MSFD Marine strategy framework directive
MSW Municipal solid waste
(Continued)
xx Abbreviations and Symbols

MT Metallothionein
NADH Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide
NADPH Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate
NOAA National oceanic and atmospheric administration
NP Nonylphenol
NPE Nonylphenol ethoxylate
NRRT Neutral red retention time
NSP Neurotoxic shellfish poison
OC Organochlorine
OD-PABA Octyl dimethyl-paraaminobenzoic acid
OPA Oil pollution act
OSPAR OsloeParis commission
PA Polyamide
PAH Polyaromatic hydrocarbon
PBDE Polybrominateddiphenylethers
PBT Persistent bioaccumulable toxic
PC Polycarbonate
PCA Principal components analysis
PCB Polychlorinatedbiphenyls
PCDD Polychlorinateddibenzo-p-dioxins
PCDF Polychlorinateddibenzofurans
PCR Polymerase chain reaction
PE Polyethylene
PEC Predicted environmental concentration
PEL Probable effect level
PET Polyethylene terephthalate
PFOA Perfluorooctanoic acid
PFOS Perfluorooctane sulfonate
PFOSA Perfluorooctane sulfonamide
PFU Plaque-forming units
Phe Phenanthrene
PLA Polylactic acid
PNEC Predicted no-effect concentration
PNR Proportion net response
POM Particulate organic matter
POP Persistent organic pollutant
PS Polystyrene
PSP Paralytic shellfish poison
PP Polypropylene
PUR Polyurethane
PVC Polyvinyl chloride
Pyr Pyrene
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 Abbreviations and Symbols xxi

QA Quality assurance
QC Quality control
QSAR Quantitative structure-activity relationship
R Risk quotient
RBC Rotating biological contactor
RDA Redundancy analysis
REACH Registration, evaluation, authorization, and restriction of
chemicals
RNA Ribonucleic acid
RNO Réseau National d’Observation
ROCCH Réseau d’Observation de la Contamination Chimique
ROS Reactive oxygen species
RPLI Relative penis length index
RT-PCR Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction
RTR Ratio to reference
S Species richness
SARA Saturated, aromatics, resins, asphaltenes
SDS Sodium dodecylsulfate
SEM Simultaneously extracted metals
SER Smooth endoplasmic reticulum
SET Sea-urchin embryo test
SOD Superoxide dismutase
SQC Sediment quality criteria
SS Suspended solids
SSD Species sensitivity distribution
SW Seawater
T1/2 Environmental half-life
T90 90% die-off time
TBT Tributyl-tin
TC Total coliforms
TCDD 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin
TCEP Tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate
TCPP Tris(chloropropyl) phosphate
TCS Triclosan
TDCPP Tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate
TEL Threshold effect level
TL Trophic level
TOC Total organic carbon
TPM Total particulate matter
TSCA Toxic substances control act
TT Toxicity threshold
TTF Trophic transfer factor
TU Toxic units
(Continued)
xxii Abbreviations and Symbols

UDP Uridine diphosphate

UDPGT Uridine diphosphate glucuronosyltransferase
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
UNCLOS United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
UNEP United Nations Environment Program
US United States
UV Ultraviolet radiation
VDSI Vas deferens sequence index
VTG Vitellogenin
WFD Water framework directive
WHO World Health Organization
WOE Weight of evidence
WQC Water quality criteria
WW Wet weight
WWTP Wastewater treatment plant
 CHAPTER 1

Basic Concepts

1.1 POLLUTION, AN ANTHROPOGENIC PROCESS

We normally understand as pollution the unwanted presence in the environ- A formal definition of
ment of diverse classes of toxic substances generated by human activities. As marine pollution
we will soon discuss, because of the main circulation pathways of matter in
the environment, those inputs frequently end up in the sea. In the context of
marine science, a more formal definition provided by a United Nations advi-
sory board, though strongly anthropocentric, was very successful and quoted
in the scientific literature. Marine pollution, according to that group of experts,
is “the introduction by man of substances into the marine environment
resulting in such deleterious effects as harm to living resources, hazards to
human health, hindrance to marine activities including fishing, impairment
of quality for use of seawater and reduction of amenities” (GESAMP 1969).1
Latter developments of this definition added the introduction of energy to
make clear that heat and radioactivity, already contemplated in the original
definition, could also be considered pollutants, and specified that the introduc-
tion into the sea might also be indirect via riverine or atmospheric pathways.
In the context of maritime transportation, the same board2 produced a list of
166 substances of major concern (Category 1), and their escape into the marine
environment should universally be prevented because they may cause long-term
or permanent damage, and 231 additional substances (Category 2) that because
of their short-term effects represented a hazard only in certain scenarios. From
this seminal report stems the many lists of so-called priority pollutants subse-
quently identified by agencies and institutions committed to environmental pro-
tection worldwide.
The first aspect inherent to pollution thus is its human origin, i.e., pollution is Pollution is
an anthropogenic process derived from human activities. Climatic, geological, quantitatively related
or oceanographic natural events (floods, earthquakes, red tides, etc.), even to population density
when they can be extremely harmful for the environment, are specifically and energy
excluded from the definition of pollution. Therefore, it is not surprising that consumption
the most polluted places were those supporting the highest human population

3
Marine Pollution. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-813736-9.00001-5
Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
4 CHAPTER 1: Basic Concepts

densities. But not all human societies pollute the same. Since many physical
and chemical pollutants are originated by industrial activities, industrialization
is also quantitatively related to pollution. A good quantitative subrogate for the
degree of industrialization is energy consumption. As illustrated in Fig. 1.1, the
per capita energy consumption may be up to two orders of magnitude higher in
industrialized societies compared to rural ones. According to this source, the
average American consumes approximately twice the energy than a person
from Europe, 10 times that of a person from India, and 100 times that of a
person from South Sudan.
Environmental Another societal factor affecting the environmental impact of its inhabitants is
regulations are more environmental awareness, which is directly related to the cultural level. This
strict in developed issue has been much less explored and quantified but can be illustrated by a
countries

FIGURE 1.1
Per capita energy consumption in the world in 2013. Units are Kg of oil equivalents per person and year.
Data source: World Bank.
 1.1 Pollution, an Anthropogenic Process 5

few examples. Environmentalism was borne in the most developed countries,

and under its influence environmental protection regulations are far stricter in
those countries. This translates into the fact that many chemicals that cause
environmental concern and were banned in the most developed countries,
such as persistent organochlorine pesticides, are still used in other parts of
the world with laxer environmental standards.
In 2002 the world’s largest mercury mine (Almadén, Spain) was closed as a
result of the different restrictions imposed by the European Commission to
the use of this metal in thermometers and many other applications. Currently
the global mercury production is largely dominated by China, and 79% of
global Hg emissions are located in Asia, Africa, and South America.3 Another
illustration of that is the export of waste from electronic equipment originated
in industrialized European countries to West Africa and other underdeveloped
countries, giving rise there to the uncontrolled and unhealthy “e-waste”
graveyards.

PHOTOGRAPH 1.1
Landfill of electronic equipments and other discarded appliances from all over the world in Accra (West
Africa). Photograph: Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3049457/Where-computer-
goes-die-Shocking-pictures-toxic-electronic-graveyards-Africa-West-dumps-old-PCs-laptops-
microwaves-fridges-phones.html).
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content Scribd suggests to you:
scholars is sick; go and see her, and it will be good for you.” This
person did not know where the child lived, but having inquired the
address, she went: and at the door she heard the same voice bid
her go up. On entering the room she heard another voice, soft and
beautiful, which bade her be faithful, and said, “I am the Virgin
Mary.” This voice promised her a sign at home; and accordingly, that
night, while reading the Bible, she heard it say, “Jemima, be not
afraid; it is I: if you keep my commandments it shall be well with
you.” When she repeated her visit the same things occurred, and she
heard the most exquisite music.
The same sort of phenomena were witnessed by everybody who
went—the immoral were rebuked, the good encouraged. Some were
bidden instantly to depart, and were forced to go. The voices of
several deceased persons of the family were also heard, and made
revelations.
Once the voice said, “Look up, and you shall see the sun and
moon on the ceiling!” and immediately there appeared a beautiful
representation of these planets in lively colors, viz., green, yellow,
and orange. Moreover, these figures were permanent; but the father,
who was a long time skeptical, insisted on whitewashing them over;
however, they still remained visible.
Among other things, the voice said, that though the child
appeared to suffer, she did not; that she did not know where her
body was; and that her own spirit had left it, and another had
entered; and that her body was made a speaking trumpet. The voice
told the family and visiters many things of their distant friends,
which proved true.
The girl twice saw a divine form standing by her bedside who
spoke to her, and Joseph Ragg, one of the persons who had been
invited by the voice to go, saw a beautiful and heavenly figure come
to his bedside about eleven o’clock at night, on the 17th of January.
It was in male attire, surrounded by a radiance; it came a second
time on the same night. On each occasion it opened his curtains and
looked at him benignantly, remaining about a quarter of an hour.
When it went away, the curtains fell back into their former position.
One day, while in the sick child’s room, Margaret Watson saw a
lamb, which passed through the door and entered a place where the
father, John Jobson, was; but he did not see it.
One of the most remarkable features in this case is the beautiful
music which was heard by all parties, as well as the family, including
the unbelieving father; and indeed it seems to have been, in a great
degree, this that converted him at last. This music was heard
repeatedly during a space of sixteen weeks: sometimes it was like an
organ, but more beautiful; at others there was singing of holy songs,
in parts, and the words distinctly heard. The sudden appearance of
water in the room too was most unaccountable; for they felt it, and
it was really water. When the voice desired that water should be
sprinkled, it immediately appeared as if sprinkled. At another time, a
sign being promised to the skeptical father, water would suddenly
appear on the floor; this happened “not once, but twenty times.”
During the whole course of this affair, the voices told them that
there was a miracle to be wrought on this child; and accordingly on
the 22d of June, when she was as ill as ever and they were only
praying for her death, at five o’clock the voice ordered that her
clothes should be laid out, and that everybody should leave the
room except the infant, which was two years and a half old. They
obeyed; and having been outside the door a quarter of an hour, the
voice cried, “Come in!” and when they entered, they saw the girl
completely dressed and quite well, sitting in a chair with the infant
on her knee, and she had not had an hour’s illness from that time till
the report was published, which was on the 30th of January, 1841.
Now, it is very easy to laugh at all this, and assert that these
things never happened, because they are absurd and impossible;
but while honest, well-meaning, and intelligent people, who were on
the spot, assert that they did, I confess I find myself constrained to
believe them, however much I find in the case which is discrepant
with my notions. It was not an affair of a day or an hour—there was
ample time for observation—for the phenomena continued from the
9th of February to the 22d of June; and the determined unbelief of
the father regarding the possibility of spiritual appearances,
insomuch that he ultimately expressed great regret for the
harshness he had used, is a tolerable security against imposition.
Moreover, they pertinaciously refused to receive any money or
assistance whatever, and were more likely to suffer in public opinion
than otherwise by the avowal of these circumstances.
Dr. Clanny, who publishes the report with the attestations of the
witnesses, is a physician of many years’ experience, and is also, I
believe, the inventor of the improved Davy lamp; and he declares his
entire conviction of the facts, assuring his readers that “many
persons holding high rank in the established church, ministers of
other denominations, as well as many lay-members of society, highly
respected for learning and piety, are equally satisfied.” When he first
saw the child lying on her back, apparently insensible, her eyes
suffused with florid blood, he felt assured that she had a disease of
the brain; and he was not in the least disposed to believe in the
mysterious part of the affair, till subsequent investigation compelled
him to do so: and that his belief is of a very decided character we
may feel assured, when he is content to submit to all the obloquy he
must incur by avowing it.
He adds that, since the girl has been quite well, both her family
and that of Joseph Ragg have frequently heard the same heavenly
music as they did during her illness; and Mr. Torbock, a surgeon,
who expresses himself satisfied of the truth of the above particulars,
also mentions another case, in which he, as well as a dying person
he was attending, heard divine music just before the dissolution.
Of this last phenomenon—namely, sounds as of heavenly music
being heard when a death was occurring—I have met with
numerous instances.
From the investigation of the above case, Dr. Clanny has arrived
at the conviction that the spiritual world do occasionally identify
themselves with our affairs; and Dr. Drury asserts that, besides this
instance, he has met with another circumstance which has left him
firmly convinced that we live in a world of spirits, and that he has
been in the presence of an unearthly being, who had “passed that
bourne from which,” it is said, “no traveller returns.”[8]
But the most extraordinary case I have yet met with is the
following; because it is one which can not, by any possibility, be
attributed to disease or illusion. It is furnished to me from the most
undoubted authority, and I give it as I received it, with the omission
of the names. I have indeed, in this instance, thought it right to
change the initial, and substitute G. for the right one—the particulars
being of a nature which demand the greatest delicacy, as regards
the parties concerned:—
“Mrs. S. C. Hall, in early life, was intimately acquainted with a
family, one of whom, Richard G⁠——, a young officer in the army, was
subject to a harassing visitation of a kind that is usually regarded as
supernatural. Mrs. H. once proposed to pay a visit to her particular
friend, Catherine G⁠——, but was told that it would not be convenient
exactly at that time, as Richard was on the point of coming home.
She thought the inconvenience consisted in the want of a bed-room,
and spoke of sleeping with Miss G⁠——, but found that the objection
really lay in the fact of Richard being ‘haunted,’ which rendered it
impossible for anybody else to be comfortable in the same house
with him. A few weeks after Richard’s return, Mrs. Hall heard of Mrs.
G⁠——’s being extremely ill; and found, on going to call, that it was
owing to nothing but the distress the old lady suffered in
consequence of the strange circumstance connected with her son. It
appeared that Richard, wherever he was—at home, in camp, in
lodgings, abroad, or in his own country—was liable to be visited in
his bed-room at night by certain extraordinary noises. Any light he
kept in the room was sure to be put out. Something went beating
about the walls and his bed, making a great noise, and often shifting
close to his face, but never becoming visible. If a cage-bird was in
his room, it was certain to be found dead in the morning. If he kept
a dog in the apartment, it would make away from him as soon as
released, and never come near him again. His brother, even his
mother, had slept in the room, but the visitation took place as usual.
According to Miss G⁠——’s report, she and other members of the
family would listen at the bed-room door, after Richard had gone to
sleep, and would hear the noises commence; and they would then
hear him sit up and express his vexation by a few military
execrations. The young man, at length, was obliged by this pest to
quit the army and go upon half-pay. Under its influence he became a
sort of Cain; for, wherever he lived, the annoyance was so great that
he was quickly obliged to remove. Mrs. Hall heard of his having
ultimately gone to settle in Ireland, where, however, according to a
brother whom she met about four years ago, the visitation which
afflicted him in his early years was in no degree abated.”
This can not be called a case of possession, but seems to be one
of a rapport, which attaches this invisible tormentor to his victim.

[6] There was also a remarkable case of this sort at Mr.

Chaves, in Devonshire, in the year 1810, where
affidavits were made before the magistrates
attesting the facts, and large rewards offered for
discovery, but in vain. The phenomena continued
several months, and the spiritual agent was
frequently seen in the form of some strange animal.
[7] Translated from the original German.—C. C.
[8] Alluding, I conclude, to the affair at Willington.
 CHAPTER XVII.
MISCELLANEOUS PHENOMENA.

In a former chapter, I alluded to the forms seen floating over

graves, by Billing, Pfeffel’s amanuensis. By some persons, this
luminous form is seen only as a light, just as occurs in many of the
apparition cases I have related. How far Baron Reichenbach is
correct in his conclusion, that these figures are merely the result of
the chemical process going on below, it is impossible for any one at
present to say. The fact that these lights do not always hover over
the graves, but sometimes move from them, militates against this
opinion, as I have before observed; and the insubstantial nature of
the form which reconstructed itself after Pfeffel had passed his stick
through it proves nothing, since the same thing is asserted of all
apparitions I meet with, let them be seen where they may, except in
such very extraordinary cases as that of the Bride of Corinth,
supposing that story to be true.
At the same time, although these cases are not made out to be
chemical phenomena, neither are we entitled to class them under
the head of what is commonly understood by the word ghost;
whereby we comprehend a shadowy shape, informed by an
intelligent spirit. But there are some cases, a few of which I will
mention, that it seems extremely difficult to include under one
category or the other.
The late Lieutenant-General Robertson, of Lawers, who served
during the whole of the American war, brought home with him, at its
termination, a negro, who went by the name of Black Tom, and who
continued in his service. The room appropriated to the use of this
man, in the general’s town residence (I speak of Edinburgh), was on
the ground floor; and he was heard frequently to complain that he
could not rest in it, for that every night the figure of a headless lady,
with a child in her arms, rose out of the hearth and frightened him
dreadfully. Of course nobody believed this story, and it was supposed
to be the dream of intoxication, as Tom was not remarkable for
sobriety; but, strange to say, when the old mansion was pulled down
to build Gillespie’s hospital, which stands on its site, there was
found, under the hearth-stone in that apartment, a box containing
the body of a female, from which the head had been severed; and
beside her lay the remains of an infant, wrapped in a pillow-case
trimmed with lace. She appeared, poor lady, to have been cut off in
the “blossom of her sins;” for she was dressed, and her scissors
were yet hanging by a riband to her side, and her thimble was also
in the box, having, apparently, fallen from the shrivelled finger.
Now, whether we are to consider this a ghost, or a phenomenon
of the same nature as that seen by Billing, it is difficult to decide.
Somewhat similar is the following case, which I have borrowed from
a little work entitled “Supernaturalism in New England.” Not only
does this little extract prove that the same phenomena, be they
interpreted as they may, exist in all parts of the world, but I think it
will be granted me that, although we have not here the confirmation
that time furnished in the former instance, yet it is difficult to
suppose that this unexcitable person should have been the subject
of so extraordinary a spectral illusion.
“Whoever has seen Great pond, in the east parish of Haverhill,
has seen one of the very loveliest of the thousand little lakes or
ponds of New England. With its soft slopes of greenest verdure—its
white and sparkling sand-rim—its southern hem of pine and maple,
mirrored, with spray and leaf, in the glassy water—its graceful hill-
sentinels round about, white with the orchard-bloom of spring, or
tasselled with the corn of autumn—its long sweep of blue waters,
broken here and there by picturesque headlands—it would seem a
spot, of all others, where spirits of evil must shrink, rebuked and
abashed, from the presence of the beautiful. Yet here, too, has the
shadow of the supernatural fallen. A lady of my acquaintance, a
staid, unimaginative church-member, states that, a few years ago,
she was standing in the angle formed by two roads, one of which
traverses the pond-shore, the other leading over the hill which rises
abruptly from the water. It was a warm summer evening, just at
sunset. She was startled by the appearance of a horse and cart, of
the kind used a century ago in New England, driving rapidly down
the steep hill-side, and crossing the wall a few yards before her,
without noise or displacing of a stone. The driver sat sternly erect,
with a fierce countenance, grasping the reins tightly, and looking
neither to the right nor the left. Behind the cart, and apparently
lashed to it, was a woman of gigantic size, her countenance
convulsed with a blended expression of rage and agony, writhing
and struggling, like Laocoon in the folds of the serpent. Her head,
neck, feet, and arms, were naked; wild locks of gray hair streamed
back from temples corrugated and darkened. The horrible cavalcade
swept by across the street, and disappeared at the margin of the
pond.”
Many persons will have heard of the “Wild Troop of Rodenstein,”
but few are aware of the curious amount of evidence there is in
favor of the strange belief which prevails among the inhabitants of
that region. The story goes, that the former possessors of the
castles of Rodenstein and Schnellert were robbers and pirates, who
committed, in conjunction, all manner of enormities; and that, to
this day, the troop, with their horses and carriages, and dogs, are
heard, every now and then, wildly rushing along the road between
the two castles. This sounds like a fairy tale; yet so much was it
believed, that, up to the middle of the last century, regular reports
were made to the authorities in the neighborhood of the periods
when the troop had passed. Since that, the landgericht, or court
leet, has been removed to Furth, and they trouble themselves no
longer about the Rodenstein troop; but a traveller, named Wirth,
who a few years ago undertook to examine into the affair, declares
the people assert that the passage of the visionary cavalcade still
continues; and they assured him that certain houses, that he saw
lying in ruins, were in that state because, as they lay directly in the
way of the troop, they were uninhabitable. There is seldom anything
seen; but the noise of carriage-wheels, horses’ feet, smacking of
whips, blowing of horns, and the voice of these fierce hunters of
men urging them on, are the sounds by which they recognise that
the troop is passing from one castle to the other; and at a spot
which was formerly a blacksmith’s, but is now a carpenter’s, the
invisible lord of Rodenstein still stops to have his horse shod. Mr.
Wirth copied several of the depositions out of the court records, and
they are brought down to June, 1764. This is certainly a strange
story; but it is not much more so than that of the black man, which I
know to be true.
During the seven years’ war in Germany, a drover lost his life in a
drunken squabble on the high road. For some time there was a sort
of rude tombstone, with a cross on it, to mark the spot where his
body was interred; but this has long fallen, and a milestone now fills
its place. Nevertheless, it continues commonly asserted by the
country people, and also by various travellers, that they have been
deluded in that spot by seeing, as they imagine, herds of beasts,
which, on investigation, prove to be merely visionary. Of course,
many people look upon this as a superstition; but a very singular
confirmation of the story occurred in the year 1826, when two
gentlemen and two ladies were passing the spot in a post-carriage.
One of these was a clergyman, and none of them had ever heard of
the phenomenon said to be attached to the place. They had been
discussing the prospects of the minister, who was on his way to a
vicarage, to which he had just been appointed, when they saw a
large flock of sheep, which stretched quite across the road, and was
accompanied by a shepherd and a long-haired black dog. As to meet
cattle on that road was nothing uncommon, and indeed they had
met several droves in the course of the day, no remark was made at
the moment, till, suddenly, each looked at the other and said, “What
is become of the sheep?” Quite perplexed at their sudden
disappearance, they called to the postillion to stop, and all got out in
order to mount a little elevation and look around; but still unable to
discover them, they now bethought themselves of asking the
postillion where they were, when, to their infinite surprise, they
learned that he had not seen them. Upon this, they bade him
quicken his pace, that they might overtake a carriage that had
passed them shortly before, and inquire if that party had seen the
sheep; but they had not.
 Four years later, a postmaster, named J⁠——, was on the same
road, driving a carriage, in which were a clergyman and his wife,
when he saw a large flock of sheep near the same spot. Seeing they
were very fine wethers, and supposing them to have been bought at
a sheep-fair that was then taking place a few miles off, J⁠—— drew
up his reins and stopped his horse, turning at the same time to the
clergyman to say, that he wanted to inquire the price of the sheep,
as he intended going next day to the fair himself. While the minister
was asking him what sheep he meant, J⁠—— got down and found
himself in the midst of the animals, the size and beauty of which
astonished him. They passed him at an unusual rate, while he made
his way through them to find the shepherd, when, on getting to the
end of the flock, they suddenly disappeared. He then first learned
that his fellow-travellers had not seen them at all.
Now, if such cases as these are not pure illusions, which I
confess I find it difficult to believe, we must suppose that the
animals and all the extraneous circumstances are produced by the
magical will of the spirit, either acting on the constructive
imagination of the seers, or else actually constructing the ethereal
forms out of the elements at its command, just as we have
supposed an apparition able to present himself with whatever dress
or appliances he conceives; or else we must conclude these forms to
have some relation to the mystery called PALINGNESIA, which I
have previously alluded to, although the motion and change of place
render it difficult to bring them under this category. As for the
animals, although the drover was slain, they were not; and
therefore, even granting them to have souls, we can not look upon
them as the apparitions of the flock. Neither can we consider the
numerous instances of armies seen in the air to be apparitions; and
yet these phenomena are so well established that they have been
accounted for by supposing them to be atmospherical reflections of
armies elsewhere, in actual motion. But how are we to account for
the visionary troops which are not seen in the air, but on the very
ground on which the seers themselves stand, which was the case
especially with those seen in Havarah park, near Ripley, in the year
1812? These soldiers wore a white uniform, and in the centre was a
personage in a scarlet one.
After performing several evolutions, the body began to march in
perfect order to the summit of a hill, passing the spectators at the
distance of about one hundred yards. They amounted to several
hundreds, and marched in a column, four deep, across about thirty
acres; and no sooner were they passed, than another body, far more
numerous, but dressed in dark clothes, arose and marched after
them, without any apparent hostility. Both parties having reached
the top of the hill, and there formed what the spectators called an L,
they disappeared down the other side, and were seen no more; but
at that moment a volume of smoke arose like the discharge of a
park of artillery, which was so thick that the men could not, for two
or three minutes, discover their own cattle. They then hurried home
to relate what they had seen, and the impression made on them is
described as so great, that they could never allude to the subject
without emotion.
One of them was a farmer of the name of Jackson, aged forty-
five; the other was a lad of fifteen, called Turner: and they were at
the time herding cattle in the park. The scene seems to have lasted
nearly a quarter of an hour, during which time they were quite in
possession of themselves, and able to make remarks to each other
on what they saw. They were both men of excellent character and
unimpeachable veracity, insomuch that nobody who knew them
doubted that they actually saw what they described, or, at all events,
believed that they did. It is to be observed, also, that the ground is
not swampy, nor subject to any exhalations.
About the year 1750, a visionary army of the same description
was seen in the neighborhood of Inverness, by a respectable farmer,
of Glenary, and his son. The number of troops was very great, and
they had not the slightest doubt that they were otherwise than
substantial forms of flesh and blood. They counted at least sixteen
pairs of columns, and had abundance of time to observe every
particular. The front ranks marched seven abreast, and were
accompanied by a good many women and children, who were
carrying tin cans and other implements of cookery. The men were
clothed in red, and their arms shone brightly in the sun. In the midst
of them was an animal—a deer or a horse, they could not distinguish
which—that they were driving furiously forward with their bayonets.
The younger of the two men observed to the other that every now
and then the rear ranks were obliged to run to overtake the van;
and the elder one, who had been a soldier, remarked that that was
always the case, and recommended him, if he ever served, to try
and march in the front. There was only one mounted officer: he rode
a gray dragoon horse, and wore a gold-laced hat and blue hussar
cloak, with wide, open sleeves, lined with red. The two spectators
observed him so particularly, that they said afterward they should
recognise him anywhere. They were, however, afraid of being ill-
treated, or forced to go along with the troops, whom they concluded
had come from Ireland, and landed at Kyntyre; and while they were
climbing over a dike to get out of their way, the whole thing
vanished.
Some years since, a phenomenon of the same sort was observed
at Paderborn, in Westphalia, and seen by at least thirty persons, as
well as by horses and dogs, as was discovered by the demeanor of
these animals. In October, 1836, on the very same spot, there was a
review of twenty thousand men; and the people then concluded that
the former vision was a second-sight.
A similar circumstance occurred in Stockton forest, some years
ago; and there are many recorded elsewhere—one especially, in the
year 1686, near Lanark, where, for several afternoons, in the
months of June and July, there were seen, by numerous spectators,
companies of men in arms, marching in order by the banks of the
Clyde, and other companies meeting them, &c., &c.; added to which
there were showers of bonnets, hats, guns, swords, &c., which the
seers described with the greatest exactness. All who were present
could not see these things, and Walker relates that one gentleman,
particularly, was turning the thing into ridicule, calling the seers
“damned witches and warlocks, with the second-sight!”—boasting
that “the devil a thing he could see!”—when he suddenly exclaimed,
with fear and trembling, that he now saw it all; and entreated those
who did not see, to say nothing—a change that may be easily
accounted for, be the phenomenon of what nature it may, by
supposing him to have touched one of the seers, when the faculty
would be communicated like a shock of electricity.
With regard to the palinganesia, it would be necessary to
establish that these objects had previously existed, and that, as
Oetinger says, the earthly husk having fallen off, “the volatile
essence had ascended perfect in form, but void of substance.”
The notion supported by Baron Reichenbach, that the lights seen
in churchyards and over graves are the result of a process going on
below, is by no means new, for Gaffarillus suggested the same
opinion in 1650; only he speaks of the appearances over graves and
in churchyards as shadows, ombres, as they appeared to Billing; and
he mentions, casually, as a thing frequently observed, that the same
visionary forms are remarked on ground where battles have been
fought, which he thinks arise out of a process between the earth and
the sun. When a limb has been cut off, some somnambules still
discern the form of the member as if actually attached.
But this magical process is said to be not only the work of the
elements, but also possible to man; and that as the forms of plants
can be preserved after the substance is destroyed, so can that of
man be either preserved or reproduced from the elements of his
body. In the reign of Louis XIV., three alchemists, having distilled
some earth taken from the cemetery of the Innocents, in Paris, were
forced to desist, by seeing the forms of men appearing in their vials,
instead of the philosopher’s stone, which they were seeking; and a
physician, who, after dissecting a body, and pulverizing the cranium
(which was then an article admitted into the materia medica), had
left the powder on the table of his laboratory, in charge of his
assistant, the latter, who slept in an adjoining room, was awakened
in the night by hearing a noise, which, after some search, he
ultimately traced to the powder—in the midst of which he beheld,
gradually constructing itself, a human form! First appeared the head,
with two open eyes, then the arms and hands, and, by degrees, the
rest of the person, which subsequently assumed the clothes it had
worn when alive! The man was, of course, frightened out of his wits
—the rather, as the apparition planted itself before the door, and
would not let him go away till it had made its own exit, which it
speedily did. Similar results have been said to arise from
experiments performed on blood. I confess I should be disposed to
consider these apparitions, if ever they appeared, cases of genuine
ghosts, brought into rapport by the operation, rather than forms
residing in the bones or blood. At all events, these things are very
hard to believe; but seeing we were not there, I do not think we
have any right to say they did not happen; or at least that some
phenomena did not occur, that were open to this interpretation.
It is highly probable that the seeing of those visionary armies and
similar prodigies is a sort of second-sight; but having admitted this,
we are very little nearer an explanation. Granting that, as in the
above experiments, the essence of things may retain the forms of
the substance, this does not explain the seeing that which has not
yet taken place, or which is taking place at so great a distance, that
neither Oetinger’s essence nor the superficial films of Lucretius can
remove the difficulty.
It is the fashion to say that second-sight was a mere superstition
of the highlanders, and that no such thing is ever heard of now; but
those who talk in this way know very little of the matter. No doubt, if
they set out to look for seers, they may not find them; such
phenomena, though known in all countries and in all ages, are
comparatively rare, as well as uncertain and capricious, and not to
be exercised at will: but I know of too many instances of the
existence of this faculty in families, as well as of isolated cases
occurring to individuals above all suspicion, to entertain the smallest
doubt of its reality. But the difficulty of furnishing evidence is
considerable: because, when the seers are of the humbler classes,
they are called impostors and not believed; and when they are of
the higher, they do not make the subject a matter of conversation,
nor choose to expose themselves to the ridicule of the foolish; and
consequently the thing is not known beyond their own immediate
friends. When the young duke of Orleans was killed, a lady, residing
here, saw the accident, and described it to her husband at the time
it was occurring in France. She had frequently seen the duke, when
on the continent.
 Captain N⁠—— went to stay two days at the house of Lady T⁠——.
After dinner, however, he announced that he was under the
necessity of going away that night, nor could he be induced to
remain. On being much pressed for an explanation, he confided to
some of the party that, during the dinner, he had seen a female
figure with her throat cut, standing behind Lady T⁠——’s chair. Of
course, it was thought an illusion, but Lady T⁠—— was not told of it,
lest she should be alarmed. That night the household was called up
for the purpose of summoning a surgeon—Lady T⁠—— had cut her
own throat!
Mr. C⁠——, who, though a Scotchman, was an entire skeptic with
regard to the second-sight, was told by a seer whom he had been
jeering on the subject, that, within a month, he (Mr. C⁠——) would be
a pall-bearer at a funeral; that he would go by a certain road, but
that, before they had crossed the brook, a man in a drab coat would
come down the hill and take the pall from him. The funeral occurred,
Mr. C⁠—— was a bearer, and they went by the road described; but he
firmly resolved that he would disappoint the seer by keeping the pall
while they crossed the brook; but shortly before they reached it, the
postman overtook them, with letters, which in that part of the
country arrived but twice a week, and Mr. C⁠——, who was engaged
in some speculations of importance, turned to received them—at
which moment the pall was taken from him, and on looking round,
he saw it was by a man in a drab coat!
A medical friend of mine, who practised some time at Deptford,
was once sent for to a girl who had been taken suddenly ill. He
found her with inflammation of the brain, and the only account the
mother could give of it was, that shortly before, she had run into the
room, crying, “Oh, mother, I have seen Uncle John drowned in his
boat under the fifth arch of Rochester bridge!” The girl died a few
hours afterward; and, on the following night, the uncle’s boat ran
foul of the bridge, and he was drowned, exactly as she had foretold.
Mrs. A⁠——, an English lady, and the wife of a clergyman, relates
that, previous to her marriage, she with her father and mother being
at the seaside, had arranged to make a few days’ excursion to some
races that were about to take place; and that the night before they
started, the father having been left alone, while the ladies were
engaged in their preparations, they found him, on descending to the
drawing-room, in a state of considerable agitation—which, he said,
had arisen from his having seen a dreadful face at one corner of the
room. He described it as a bruised, battered, crushed, discolored
face, with the two eyes protruding frightfully from their sockets; but
the features were too disfigured to ascertain if it were the face of
any one he knew. On the following day, on their way to the races, an
accident occurred; and he was brought home with his own face
exactly in the condition he had described. He had never exhibited
any other instance of this extraordinary faculty, and the impression
made by the circumstance lasted the remainder of his life, which
was unhappily shortened by the injuries he had received.
The late Mrs. V⁠——, a lady of fortune and family, who resides
near Loch Lomond, possessed this faculty in an extraordinary
degree, and displayed it on many remarkable occasions. When her
brother was shipwrecked in the channel, she was heard to exclaim,
“Thank God, he is saved!” and described the scene with all its
circumstances.
Colonel David Steward, a determined believer in what he calls the
supernatural, in his book on the highlanders, relates the following
fact as one so remarkable, that “credulous minds” may be excused
for believing it to have been prophetic. He says that, late in an
autumnal evening of the year 1773, the son of a neighbor came to
his father’s house, and soon after his arrival inquired for a little boy
of the family, then about three years old. He was shown up to the
nursery, and found the nurse putting a pair of new shoes on the
child, which she complained did not fit. “Never mind,” said the young
man, “they will fit him before he wants them”—a prediction which
not only offended the nurse, but seemed at the moment absurd,
since the child was apparently in perfect health. When he joined the
party in the drawing-room, he being much jeered upon this new gift
of second-sight, explained that the impression he had received
originated in his having just seen a funeral passing the wooden
bridge which crossed a stream at a short distance from the house.
He first observed a crowd of people, and on coming nearer he saw a
person carrying a small coffin, followed by about twenty gentlemen,
all of his acquaintance, his own father and a Mr. Stewart being
among the number. He did not attempt to join the procession, which
he saw turn off into the churchyard: but knowing his own father
could not be actually there, and that Mr. and Mrs. Stewart were then
at Blair, he felt a conviction that the phenomenon portended the
death of the child: a persuasion which was verified by its suddenly
expiring on the following night;—and Colonel Stewart adds that the
circumstances and attendants at the funeral were precisely such as
the young man had described. He mentions, also, that this
gentleman was not a seer; that he was a man of education and
general knowledge; and that this was the first and only vision of the
sort he ever had.
I know of a young lady who has three times seen funerals in this
way.
The old persuasion that fasting was a means of developing the
spirit of prophecy, is undoubtedly well founded, and the annals of
medicine furnish numerous facts which establish it. A man
condemned to death at Viterbo, having abstained from food in the
hope of escaping execution, became so clairvoyant, that he could tell
what was doing in any part of the prison; the expression used in the
report is that he “saw through the walls:” this, however, could not be
with his natural organs of sight.
It is worthy of observation, that idiots often possess some
gleams of this faculty of second-sight or presentiment; and it is
probably on this account that they are in some countries held
sacred. Presentiment, which I think may very probably be merely the
vague and imperfect recollection of what we knew in our sleep, is
often observed in drunken people.
In the great plague at Basle, which occurred toward the end of
the sixteenth century, almost everybody who died called out in their
last moments the name of the person that was to follow them next.
Not long ago, a servant girl on the estate of D⁠——, of S⁠——, saw
with amazement five figures ascending a perpendicular cliff, quite
inaccessible to human feet; one was a boy wearing a cap with red
binding. She watched them with great curiosity till they reached the
top, where they all stretched themselves on the earth, with
countenances expressive of great dejection. While she was looking
at them they disappeared, and she immediately related her vision.
Shortly afterward, a foreign ship, in distress, was seen to put off a
boat with four men and a boy: the boat was dashed to pieces in the
surf, and the five bodies, exactly answering the description she had
given, were thrown on shore at the foot of the cliff, which they had
perhaps climbed in the spirit!
How well what we call clairvoyance was known, though how little
understood, at the period of the witch persecution, is proved by
what Dr. Henry More says in his “Antidote against Atheism”:—
“We will now pass to those supernatural effects which are
observed in them that are bewitched or possessed; and such as
foretelling things to come, telling what such and such persons speak
or do, as exactly as if they were by them, when the party possessed
is at one end of the town, and sitting in a house within doors, and
those parties that act and confer together are without, at the other
end of the town; to be able to see some and not others; to play at
cards with one certain person, and not to discern anybody else at
the table beside him; to act and talk, and go up and down, and tell
what will become of things, and what happens in those fits of
possession; and then, as soon as the possessed or bewitched party
is out of them, to remember nothing at all, but to inquire concerning
the welfare of those whose faces they seemed to look upon just
before, when they were in their fits;”—a state which he believes to
arise from the devil’s having taken possession of the body of the
magnetic person, which is precisely the theory supported by many
fanatical persons in our own day. Dr. More was not a fanatic: but
these phenomena, though very well understood by the ancient
philosophers, as well as by Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Cornelius
Agrippa, Jacob Behmen, a Scotch physician (called Maxwell) who
published on the subject in the seventeenth century, and many
others, were still, when observed, looked upon as the effects of
diabolical influence by mankind in general.
When Monsieur Six Deniers, the artist, was drowned in the Seine
in 1846, after his body had been vainly sought, a somnambule was
applied to, in whose hands they placed a portfolio belonging to him;
and being asked where the owner was, she evinced great terror,
held up her dress as if walking in the water, and said that he was
between two boats, under the Pont des Arts, with nothing on but a
flannel waistcoat: and there he was found.
A friend of mine knows a lady who, early one morning—being in
a natural state of clairvoyance without magnetism—saw the porter
of the house where her son lodged ascend to his room with a
carving-knife, go to his bed where he lay asleep, lean over him, then
open a chest, take out a fifty-pound note, and retire. On the
following day, she went to her son and asked him if he had any
money in the house; he said, “Yes, I have fifty pounds:” whereupon
she bade him seek it, but it was gone. They stopped payment of the
note; but did not prosecute, thinking the evidence insufficient.
Subsequently, the porter being taken up for other crimes, the note
was found crumpled up at the bottom of an old purse belonging to
him.
Dr. Ennemoser says that there is no doubt of the ancient Sibyls
having been clairvoyant women, and that it is impossible so much
value could have been attached to their books, had not their
revelations been verified.
A maid-servant residing in a family in Northumberland, one day
last winter was heard to utter a violent scream immediately after she
had left the kitchen. On following her to inquire what had happened,
she said that she had just seen her father in his night-clothes, with a
most horrible countenance, and she was sure something dreadful
had happened to him. Two days afterward there arrived a letter,
saying he had been seized with delirium tremens, and was at the
point of death; which accordingly ensued.
There are innumerable cases of this sort recorded in various
collections, not to mention the much more numerous ones that meet
with no recorder; and I could myself mention many more, but these
will suffice—one, however, I will not omit, for, though historical, it is
not generally known. A year before the rebellion broke out, in
consequence of which Lord Kilmarnock lost his head, the family were
one day startled by a scream, and on rushing out to inquire what
had occurred, they found the servants all assembled, in amazement,
with the exception of one maid, who they said had gone up to the
garrets to hang some linen on the lines to dry. On ascending thither,
they found the girl on the floor, in a state of insensibility; and they
had no sooner revived her than, on seeing Lord Kilmarnock bending
over her, she screamed and fainted again. When ultimately
recovered, she told them that while hanging up her linen, and
singing, the door had burst open and his lordship’s bloody head had
rolled in. I think it came twice. This event was so well known at the
time, that on the first rumors of the rebellion, Lord Saltoun said,
“Kilmarnock will lose his head.” It was answered, “that Kilmarnock
had not joined the rebels.” “He will, and will be beheaded,” returned
Lord Saltoun.
Now, in these cases we are almost compelled to believe that the
phenomenon is purely subjective, and there is no veritable
outstanding object seen; yet, when we have taken refuge in this
hypothesis, the difficulty remains as great as ever; and is to me
much more incomprehensible than ghost-seeing, because in the
latter we suppose an external agency acting in some way or other
on the seer.
I have already mentioned that Oberlin, the good pastor of Ban de
la Roche, himself a ghost-seer, asserted that everything earthly had
its counterpart, or antitype, in the other world, not only organized,
but unorganized matter. If so, do we sometimes see these antitypes?
Dr. Ennemoser, in treating of second-sight—which, by the way, is
quite as well known in Germany, and especially in Denmark, as in
the highlands of Scotland—says, that as in natural somnambulism
there is a partial internal vigilance, so does the seer fall, while
awake, into a dream-state. He suddenly becomes motionless and
stiff: his eyes are open, and his senses are, while the vision lasts,
unperceptive of all external objects; the vision may be
communicated by the touch, and sometimes persons at a distance
from each other, but connected by blood or sympathy, have the
vision simultaneously. He remarks, also, that, as we have seen in the
above case of Mr. C⁠——, any attempt to frustrate the fulfilment of
the vision never succeeds, inasmuch as the attempt appears to be
taken into the account.
The seeing in glass and in crystals is equally inexplicable; as is
the magical seeing of the Egyptians. Every now and then we hear it
said that this last is discovered to be an imposition, because some
traveller has either actually fallen into the hands of an impostor—and
there are impostors in all trades—or because the phenomenon was
imperfectly exhibited; a circumstance which, as in the exhibitions of
clairvoyants and somnambulists, where all the conditions are not
under command, or even recognised, must necessarily happen. But
not to mention the accounts published by Mr. Lane and Lord
Prudhoe, whoever has read that of Monsieur Léon Laborde must be
satisfied that the thing is an indisputable fact. It is, in fact, only
another form of the seeing in crystals, which has been known in all
ages, and of which many modern instances have occurred among
somnambulic patients.
We see by the forty-fourth chapter of Genesis that it was by his
cup that Joseph prophesied: “Is not this it in which my lord drinketh,
and whereby indeed he divineth?” But, as Dr. Passavent observes,
and as we shall presently see, in the anecdote of the boy and the
gipsy, the virtue does not lie in the glass nor in the water, but in the
seer himself, who may possess a more or less developed faculty. The
external objects and ceremonies being only the means of
concentrating the attention and intensifying the power.
Monsieur Léon Laborde witnessed the exhibition, at Cairo, before
Lord P⁠——’s visit; the exhibitor, named Achmed, appeared to him a
respectable man, who spoke simply of his science, and had nothing
of the charlatan about him. The first child employed was a boy
eleven years old, the son of a European; and Achmed having traced
some figures on the palm of his hand, and poured ink over them,
bade him look for the reflection of his own face. The child said he
saw it; the magician then burnt some powders in a brazier, and bade
him tell him when he saw a soldier sweeping a place; and while the
fumes from the brazier diffused themselves, he pronounced a sort of
litany. Presently the child threw back his head, and screaming with
terror, sobbed out, while bathed in tears, that he had seen a
dreadful face. Fearing the boy might be injured, Monsieur Laborde
now called up a little Arab servant, who had never seen or heard of
the magician. He was gay and laughing, and not at all frightened;
and the ceremony being repeated, he said he saw the soldier
sweeping in the front of a tent. He was then desired to bid the
soldier bring Shakspere, Colonel Cradock, and several other persons;
and he described every person and thing so exactly as to be entirely
satisfactory. During the operations the boy looked as if intoxicated,
with his eyes fixed and the perspiration dripping from his brow.
Achmed disenchanted him by placing his thumbs on his eyes. He
gradually recovered, and gayly related all he had seen, which he
perfectly remembered.
Now this is merely another form of what the Laplanders, the
African magicians, and the Schaamans of Siberia, do by taking
narcotics and turning round till they fall down in a state of
insensibility, in which condition they are clear-seers, and besides
vaticinating, describe scenes, places, and persons, they have never
seen. In Barbary they anoint their hands with a black ointment, and
then holding them up in the sun, they see whatever they desire, like
the Egyptians.
Lady S⁠—— possesses somewhat of a singular faculty, naturally.
By walking rapidly round a room several times, till a certain degree
of vertigo is produced, she will name to you any person you have
privately thought of or agreed upon with others. Her phrase is: “I
see” so and so.
Monsieur Laborde purchased the secret of Achmed, who said he
had learned it from two celebrated scheicks of his own country,
which was Algiers. Monsieur L. found it connected with both physics
and magnetism, and practised it himself afterward with perfect
success; and he affirms, positively, that under the influence of a
particular organization and certain ceremonies, among which he can
not distinguish which are indispensable and which are not, that a
child, without fraud or collusion, can see, as through a window or
peep-hole, people moving, who appear and disappear at their
command, and with whom they hold communication—and they
remember everything after the operation. He says: “I narrate, but
explain nothing; I produced those effects, but can not comprehend
them; I only affirm in the most positive manner that what I relate is
true. I performed the experiment in various places, with various
subjects, before numerous witnesses, in my own room or other
rooms, in the open air, and even in a boat on the Nile. The
exactitude and detailed descriptions of persons, places, and scenes,
could by no possibility be feigned.”
Moreover, Baron Dupotet has very lately succeeded in obtaining
these phenomena in Paris, from persons not somnambulic selected
from his audience,—the chief difference being that they did not
recollect what they had seen when the crisis was over.
Cagliostro, though a charlatan, was possessed of this secret, and
it was his great success in it that chiefly sustained his reputation; the
spectators, convinced he could make children see distant places and
persons in glass, were persuaded he could do other things, which
appeared to them no more mysterious. Dr. Dee was perfectly honest
with regard to his mirror, in which he could see by concentrating his
mind on it; but, as he could not remember what he saw, he
employed Kelly to see for him, while he himself wrote down the
revelations: and Kelly was a rogue, and deceived and ruined him.
A friend of Pfeffel’s knew a boy, apprenticed to an apothecary at
Schoppenweyer, who, having been observed to amuse himself by
looking into vials filled with water, was asked what he saw; when it
was discovered that he possessed this faculty of seeing in glass,
which was afterward very frequently exhibited for the satisfaction of
the curious. Pfeffel also mentions another boy who had this faculty,
and who went about the country with a small mirror, answering
questions, recovering stolen goods, &c. He said that he one day fell
in with some gipsies, one of whom was sitting apart and staring into
this glass. The boy, from curiosity, looked over his shoulder and
exclaimed that he saw “a fine man who was moving about;”
whereupon the gipsy, having interrogated him, gave him the glass;
“for,” said he, “I have been staring in it long enough, and can see
nothing but my own face.”
It is almost unnecessary to observe that the sacred books of the
Jews and of the Indians testify to their acquaintance with this mode
of divination, as well as many others.
Many persons will have heard or read an account of Mr. Canning
and Mr. Huskisson having seen, while in Paris, the visionary
representation of their own deaths in water, as exhibited to them by
a Russian or Polish lady there: as I do not, however, know what
authority there is for this story, I will not insist on it here. But St.
Simon relates a very curious circumstance of this nature, which
occurred at Paris, and was related to him by the duke of Orleans,
afterward regent. The latter said that he had sent on the preceding
evening for a man, then in Paris, who pretended to exhibit whatever
was desired in a glass of water. He came, and a child of seven years
old, belonging to the house, being called up, they bade her tell what
she saw doing in certain places. She did; and as they sent to these
places and found her report correct, they bade her next describe
under what circumstances the king would die, without, however,
asking when the death would take place.
The child knew none of the court, and had never been at
Versailles; yet she described everything exactly—the room, bed,
furniture, and the king himself, Madame de Maintenon, Fagon, the
physician, the princes and princesses—everybody, in short, including
a child, wearing an order, in the arms of a lady whom she recognised
as having seen; this was Madame de Ventadour.
It was remarkable that she omitted the dukes de Bourgogne and
Berry, and Monseigneur, and also the duchess de Bourgogne.
Orleans insisted they must be there, describing them; but she
always said “No.” These persons were then all well, but they died
before the king. She also saw the children of the prince and princess
of Conti, but not themselves—which was correct, as they also died
shortly after this occurrence.
Orleans then wished to see his own destiny; and the man said, if
he would not be frightened he could show it to him, as if painted on
the wall; and after fifteen minutes of conjuration, the duke
appeared, of the natural size, dressed as usual, but with a couronne
fermée or closed crown on his head, which they could not
comprehend, as it was not that of any country they knew of. It
covered his head, had only four circles, and nothing at the top. They
had never seen such a one. When he became regent, they
understood that that was the interpretation of the prediction.
In connection with this subject, the aversion to glass frequently
manifested by dogs is well worthy of observation.
When facts of this kind are found to be recorded or believed in,
in all parts of the world, from the beginning of it up to the present
time, it is surely vain for the so-called savants to deny them; and, as
Cicero justly says in describing the different kinds of magic, “What
we have to do with is the facts, since of the cause we know little.
Neither,” he adds, “are we to repudiate these phenomena, because
we sometimes find them imperfect, or even false, any more than we
are to distrust that the human eye sees, although some do this very
imperfectly, or not at all.”
We are part spirit and part matter: by the former we are allied to
the spiritual world and to the absolute spirit; and as nobody doubts
that the latter can work magically, that is, by the mere act of will—
for by the mere act of will all things were created, and by its
constant exertion all things are sustained—why should we be
astonished that we, who partake of the Divine nature and were
created after God’s own image, should also, within certain limits,
partake of this magical power? That this power has been frequently
abused, is the fault of those who, being capable, refuse to
investigate, and deny the existence of these and similar phenomena;
and, by thus casting them out of the region of legitimate science,
leave them to become the prey of the ignorant and designing.
Dr. Ennemoser, in his very learned work on magic, shows us that
all the phenomena of magnetism and somnambulism, and all the
various kinds of divination, have been known and practised in every
country under the sun; and have been intimately connected with,
and indeed may be traced up to the fountain-head of every religion.
What are the limits of these powers possessed by us while in the
flesh—how far they may be developed—and whether, at the extreme
verge of what we can effect, we begin to be aided by God or by
spirits of other spheres of existence bordering on ours—we know
not; but, with respect to the morality of these practices, it suffices
that what is good in act or intention, must come of good; and what
is evil in act or intention, must come of evil: which is true now, as it
was in the time of Moses and the prophets, when miracles and
magic were used for purposes holy and unholy, and were to be
judged accordingly. God works by natural laws, of which we yet
know very little, and, in some departments of his kingdom, nothing;
and whatever appears to us supernatural, only appears so from our
ignorance; and whatever faculties or powers he has endowed us
with, it must have been designed we should exercise and cultivate
for the benefit and advancement of our race: nor can I for one
moment suppose that, though like everything else, liable to abuse,
the legitimate exercise of these powers, if we knew their range,
would be useless, much less pernicious or sinful.
Of the magical power of will, as I have said before, we know
nothing; and it does not belong to a purely rationalistic age to
acknowledge what it can not understand. In all countries men have
arisen, here and there, who have known it, and some traces of it
have survived both in language and in popular superstitions. “If ye
have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this
mountain, ‘Remove hence,’ and it shall remove; and nothing shall be
impossible to you. Howbeit, this kind goeth not out but by prayer
and fasting.” And, veuillez et croyez—will and believe—was the
solution Puységur gave of his magical cures; and no doubt the
explanation of those affected by royal hands is to be found in the
fact that they believed in themselves; and having faith, they could
exercise will. But, with the belief in the divine right of kings, the faith
and the power would naturally expire together.
With respect to what Christ says, in the above-quoted passage,
of fasting, numerous instances are extant, proving that clear-seeing
and other magical or spiritual powers are sometimes developed by it.
Wilhelm Krause, a doctor of philosophy and a lecturer at Jena,
who died during the prevalence of the cholera, cultivated these
powers and preached them. I have not been able to obtain his
works, they being suppressed as far as is practicable by the Prussian
government. Krause could leave his body, and, to all appearance, die
whenever he pleased. One of his disciples, yet living, Count von
Eberstein, possesses the same faculty.
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