Folklore; Manners and customs; Mythology; Religion
clutched on the stick, nor could she let it go....' The stick was
given to Mrs. Welton, 'and it drew her with very considerable force to
nearly the centre of the garden, to a bed of poppies, where she
stopped.' Here water was found, and the gardener, who had given up his
lease as there was no well in the garden, had the lease renewed.
We began by giving evidence to show (and much more might be adduced)
that the belief in the divining rod, or in analogous instruments, is
not confined to the European races. The superstition, or whatever we
are to call it, produces the same effects of physical agitation, and
the use of the rod is accompanied with similar phenomena among
Mongols, English people, Frenchmen, and the natives of Central Africa.
The same coincidences are found in almost all superstitious practices,
and in the effects of these practices on believers. The Chinese use a
form of _planchette_, which is half a divining rod--a branch of the
peach tree; and 'spiritualism' is more than three-quarters of the
religion of most savage tribes, a Maori _séance_ being more impressive
than anything the civilised Sludge can offer his credulous patrons.
From these facts different people draw different inferences. Believers
say that the wide distribution of their favourite mysteries is a proof
that 'there is something in them.' The incredulous look on our modern
'twigs' and turning-tables and ghost stories as mere 'survivals' from
the stage of savage culture, or want of culture, when the fancy of
half-starved man was active and his reason uncritical.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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