'It is a matter worthy of consideration that the accounts of similar
phenomena of culture, recurring in different parts of the world,
actually supply incidental proof of their own authenticity. . . .
The test of recurrence comes in. . . . The possibility of
intentional or unintentional mystification is often barred by such a
state of things as that a similar statement is made in two remote
lands by two witnesses, of whom A lived a century before B, and B
appears never to have heard of A.'
If for 'similar phenomena of culture' here, we substitute 'similar
abnormal phenomena' (such as clairvoyance, wraiths, unexplained
disturbances), Mr. Tylor's argument in favour of his evidence for
institutions applies equally well to our evidence for mysterious
'facts'. 'How distant are the countries,' he goes on, 'how wide
apart are the dates, how different the creeds and characters in the
catalogue of the facts of civilisation, needs no further showing'--
to the student of Mr. Tylor's erudite footnotes. In place of 'facts
of civilisation' read 'psychical phenomena,' and Mr. Tylor's
argument applies to the evidence for these rejected and scouted
beliefs.
The countries from which 'ghosts' and 'wraiths' and 'clairvoyance'
are reported are 'distant'; the dates are 'wide apart'; the 'creeds
and characters of the observers' 'are 'different'; yet the evidence
is as uniform, and as recurrent, as it is in the case of
institutions, manners, customs. Indeed the evidence for the
rejected and abnormal phenomena is even more 'recurrent' than the
evidence for customs and institutions. Polyandry, totemism, human
sacrifice, the taboo, are only reported as existing in remote and
semi-civilised countries. Clairvoyance, wraiths, ghosts, mysterious
disturbances and movements of objects are reported as existing, not
only in distant ages, but today; not only among savages or
barbarians, but in London, Paris, Milan. No ages can be more wide
apart, few countries much more distant, than ancient Egypt and
modern England: no characters look more different than that of an
old scribe under Pharaoh, and that of a distinguished soldier under
Queen Victoria. Yet the scribe of Khemi and General Campbell suffer
from the same inexplicable annoyance, attribute it to the same very
abnormal agency, and attempt (not unsuccessfully) to communicate
with that agency, in precisely the same way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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