The Phantom World; or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c.Calmet, Augustin
Religion
The Phantom World; or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c.
Calmet, Augustin
Apparitions; Demonology; Spirits
Within a short time, a work composed by a Father Premontre, of the
Abbey of Toussaints, in the Black Forest, has been communicated to me.
His work is in manuscript, and entitled, "Umbra Humberti, hoc est
historia memorabilis D. Humberti Birkii, mira post mortem apparitione,
per A. G. N."
This Humbert Birck was a burgess of note, in the town of Oppenheim,
and master of a country house called Berenbach; he died in the month
of November, 1620, a few days before the feast of St. Martin. On the
Saturday which followed his funeral, they began to hear certain noises
in the house where he had lived with his first wife; for at the time
of his death he had married again.
The master of this house, suspecting that it was his brother-in-law
who haunted it, said to him, "If you are Humbert, my brother-in-law,
strike three times against the wall." At the same time, they heard
three strokes only, for ordinarily he struck several times. Sometimes,
also, he was heard at the fountain where they went for water, and he
frightened all the neighborhood; he did not always utter articulate
sounds, but he would knock repeatedly, make a noise, or a groan, or a
shrill whistle, or sounds as a person in lamentation; all this lasted
for six months, and then it suddenly ceased. At the end of a year he
made himself heard more loudly than ever. The master of the house, and
his domestics, the boldest amongst them, at last asked him what he
wished for, and in what they could help him? He replied, but in a
hoarse, low tone, "Let the cure come here next Saturday with my
children." The cure being indisposed, could not go thither on the
appointed day; but he went on the Monday following, accompanied by a
good many people.
Humbert received notice of this, and he answered in a very
intelligible manner. They asked him if he required any masses to be
said? He asked for three. Then they wished to know if alms should be
given in his name? He said, "I wish them to give eight measures of
corn to the poor, and that my widow may give something to all my
children." He afterwards ordered that what had been badly distributed
in his succession, which amounted to about twenty florins, should be
set aside. They asked why he infested that house rather than another?
He answered that he was forced to it by conjuration and maledictions.
Had he received the sacraments of the Church? "I received them from
the cure, your predecessor." He was made to say the _Pater_ and the
_Ave_; he recited them with difficulty, saying that he was prevented
by an evil spirit, who would not let him tell the cure many other
things.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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