[Footnote 14: I saw the photographs.]
[Footnote 15: I have been shown the letter of January 20, which confirmed
the evidence of the crystal pictures. The camp was formed for official
purposes in which Mr. Clifton was concerned. A letter of February 9
unconsciously corroborates.]
[Footnote 16: The incident of the feet occurred at 4.30 to 7.30 P.M. The
crystal picture was about 10 P.M.]
[Footnote 17: Miss Angus had only within the week made the acquaintance of
Mrs. Cockburn and the Bissetts. Of these relations of theirs at a distance
she had no knowledge.]
[Footnote 18: I have seen a photograph of this gentleman, Major Hamilton,
which tallies with the full description given by Miss Angus, as reported
by Mrs. Bissett. All the proper names here, as throughout, are altered.
This account I wrote from the verbal statement of Mrs. Bissett. It
was then read and corroborated by herself, Mr. Bissett, Mr. Cockburn,
Mrs. Cockburn, and Miss Angus, who added dates and signatures.]
[Footnote 19: The letters attesting each of these experiments are in my
possession. The real names are in no case given in this account, by my own
desire, but (with permission of the persona concerned) can be communicated
privately.]
[Footnote 20: The faculty of seeing 'fancy pictures' in the glass is
far from uncommon. I have only met with three other persons besides
Miss Angus, two of them men, who had any success in 'telepathic'
crystal-gazing. In correcting 'revises' (March 16), I leant that the
brother of Mr. Pembroke (p. 105) wrote from Cairo on January 27. The
'scry' of January 23 represented his ship in the Suez Canal. He was, as
his letter shows, in quarantine at Suez, at Moses's Wells, from January 25
to January 26. Major Hamilton (pp. 109, 110), on the other hand, left
Bombay, indeed, but not by sea, as in the crystal-picture. See Appendix C.
Mr. Starr, an American critic, adds Cherokees, Aztecs, and Tonkaways to
the ranks of crystal gazers.]
VI
ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS
We have been examining cases, savage or civilised, in which knowledge is
believed to be acquired through no known channel of sense. All such
instances among savages, whether of the nature of clairvoyance simple,
or by aid of gazing in a smooth surface, or in dreams, or in trance, or
through second sight, would confirm if they did not originate the belief
in the separable soul. The soul, if it is to visit distant places and
collect information, must leave the body, it would be argued, and must so
far be capable of leading an independent life. Perhaps we ought next to
study cases of 'possession,' when knowledge is supposed to be conveyed by
an alien soul, ghost, spirit, or god, taking up its abode in a man, and
speaking out of his lips. But it seems better first to consider the
alleged super-normal phenomena which may have led the savage reasoner to
believe that _he_ was not the only owner of a separable soul: that other
people were equally gifted.
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