Cock Lane and Common-Sense | Page 4

H. Lewes.
Absurdity and charlatanism of 'Spiritualism'. Historical aspect of the
subject. Universality of Animistic Beliefs, in every stage of culture.
Not peculiar to savagery, ignorance, the Dark Ages, or periods of
Religious crisis. Nature of the Evidence.
It is not without hesitation that this book is offered to the reader. Very
many people, for very various reasons, would taboo the subjects here

discoursed of altogether. These subjects are a certain set of ancient
beliefs, for example the belief in clairvoyance, in 'hauntings,' in events
transcending ordinary natural laws. The peculiarity of these beliefs is,
that they have survived the wreck of faith in such elements of
witchcraft as metamorphosis, and power to cause tempest or drought.
To study such themes is 'impious,' or 'superstitious,' or 'useless'. Yet to
a pathologist, or anthropologist, the survivals of beliefs must always be
curious and attractive illustrations of human nature.
Ages, empires, civilisations pass, and leave some members even of
educated mankind still, in certain points, on the level of the savage who
propitiates with gifts, or addresses with prayers, the spirits of the dead.
An example of this endurance, this secular survival of belief, may be
more instructive and is certainly more entertaining than a world of
assertions. In his Etudes Egyptiennes (Tome i. fascic. 2) M. Maspero
publishes the text and translation of a papyrus fragment. This papyrus
was discovered still attached to a statuette in wood, representing 'the
singer of Ammen, Kena,' in ceremonial dress. The document is a letter
written by an ancient Egyptian scribe, 'To the Instructed Khou of the
Dame Onkhari,' his own dead wife, the Khou, or Khu, being the spirit
of that lady. The scribe has been 'haunted' since her decease, his home
has been disturbed, he asks Onkhari what he has done to deserve such
treatment: 'What wrong have I been guilty of that I should be in this
state of trouble? what have I done that thou should'st help to assail me?
no crime has been wrought against thee. From the hour of my marriage
till this day, what have I wrought against thee that I need conceal?'
He vows that, when they meet at the tribunal of Osiris, he will have
right on his side.
This letter to the dead is deposited in the tomb of the dead, and we may
trust that the scribe was no longer annoyed by a Khou, which being
instructed, should have known better. To take another ancient instance,
in his Philopseudes Lucian introduces a kind of club of superstitious
men, telling ghost stories. One of them assures his friend that the
spectre of his late wife has visited and vexed him, because he had
accidentally neglected to burn one of a pair of gilt shoes, to which she

was attached. She indicated the place where the shoe was lying hidden,
and she was pacified. Lucian, of course, treats this narrative in a spirit
of unfeeling mirth, but, if such tales were not current in his time, there
would have been no point in his banter. Thus the belief in the haunting
of a husband by the spirit of his wife, the belief which drives a native
Australian servant from the station where his gin is buried, survived old
Egypt, and descended to Greece. We now take a modern instance,
closely corresponding to that of the Instructed Khou of the Dame
Onkhari.
In the Proceedings of the Psychical Society (part xiv. p. 477) the late
General Campbell sends, from Gwalior House, Southgate, N., April 27,
1884, a tale of personal experiences and actions, which exactly
reproduces the story of the Egyptian Scribe. The narrative is long and
not interesting, except as an illustration of survival,-- in all senses of
the word.
General Campbell says that his wife died in July, 1882. He describes
himself as of advanced age, and cautious in forming opinions. In 1882
he had never given any consideration to 'the subject of ultra-mundane
indications'. Yet he recounts examples of 'about thirty inexplicable
sounds, as if inviting my attention specially, and two apparitions or
visions, apparently of a carefully calculated nature, seen by a child
visitor, a blood relation of my late wife, whom this child had never
seen, nor yet any likeness of her'. The general then describes his house,
a new one, and his unsuccessful endeavours to detect the cause of the
knocks, raps, crashes, and other disturbances. Unable to discover any
ordinary cause, he read some books on 'Spiritualism,' and, finally,
addressed a note, as the Egyptian Scribe directed a letter, to the 'agent':
{4} Give three raps if from my deceased wife!
He was rewarded by three crashing sounds, and by other peculiar
phenomena. All these, unlike the scribe, he regarded as sent 'for my
particular conviction and comfort'.
These instances prove that,