Unknown Guest

Maurice Maeterlinck

Description

pubOne.info present you this new edition. My Essay on Death[1] led me to make a conscientious enquiry into the present position of the great mystery, an enquiry which I have endeavoured to render as complete as possible. I had hoped that a single volume would be able to contain the result of these investigations, which, I may say at once, will teach nothing to those who have been over the same ground and which have nothing to recommend them except their sincerity, their impartiality and a certain scrupulous accuracy. But, as I proceeded, I saw the field widening under my feet, so much so that I have been obliged to divide my work into two almost equal parts. The first is now published and is a brief study of veridical apparitions and hallucinations and haunted houses, or, if you will, the phantasms of the living and the dead; of those manifestations which have been oddly and not very appropriately described as "psychometric"; of the knowledge of the future: presentiments, omens, premonitions, precognitions and the rest; and lastly of the Elberfeld horses

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819936565
• Langue: English

Extrait

INTRODUCTION
1
My Essay on Death [1] led me to make aconscientious enquiry into the present position of the greatmystery, an enquiry which I have endeavoured to render as completeas possible. I had hoped that a single volume would be able tocontain the result of these investigations, which, I may say atonce, will teach nothing to those who have been over the sameground and which have nothing to recommend them except theirsincerity, their impartiality and a certain scrupulous accuracy.But, as I proceeded, I saw the field widening under my feet, somuch so that I have been obliged to divide my work into two almostequal parts. The first is now published and is a brief study ofveridical apparitions and hallucinations and haunted houses, or, ifyou will, the phantasms of the living and the dead; of thosemanifestations which have been oddly and not very appropriatelydescribed as “psychometric”; of the knowledge of the future:presentiments, omens, premonitions, precognitions and the rest; andlastly of the Elberfeld horses. In the second, which will bepublished later, I shall treat of the miracles of Lourdes and otherplaces, the phenomena of so called materialization, of thedivining-rod and of fluidic asepsis, not unmindful withal of adiamond dust of the miraculous that hangs over the greater marvelsin that strange atmosphere into which we are about to pass.
[1] Published in English, in anenlarged form, under the title of Our Eternity (London and NewYork, 1913)— Translator's Note.
2
When I speak of the present position of the mystery,I of course do not mean the mystery of life, its end and itsbeginnings, nor yet the great riddle of the universe which liesabout us. In this sense, all is mystery, and, as I have saidelsewhere, is likely always to remain so; nor is it probable thatwe shall ever touch any point of even the utmost borders ofknowledge or certainty. It is here a question of that which, in themidst of this recognized and usual mystery, the familiar mystery ofwhich we are almost oblivious, suddenly disturbs the regular courseof our general ignorance. In themselves, these facts which strikeus as supernatural are no more so than the others; possibly theyare rarer, or, to be more accurate, less frequently or less easilyobserved. In any case, their deep-seated cause, while beingprobably neither more remote nor more difficult access, seem to liehidden in an unknown region less often visited by our science,which after all is but a reassuring and conciliatory espression ofour ignorance. Today, thanks to the labours of the Society forPsychical Research and a host of other seekers, we are able toapproach these phenomena as a whole with a certain confidence.Leaving the realm of legend, of after-dinner stories, old wives'tales, illusions and exaggerations, we find ourselves at last oncircumscribed but fairly safe ground. This does not mean that thereare no other supernatural phenomena besides those collected in thepublications of the society in question and in a few of the moreweighty reviews which have adopted the same methods.Notwithstanding all their diligence, which for over thirty yearshas been ransacking the obscure corners of our planet, it isinevitable that a good many things escape their notice, besideswhich the rigour of their investigations makes them reject threefourths of those which are brought before them. But we may say thatthe twenty-six volumes of the society is Proceedings and thefifteen or sixteen volumes of its Journal, together with thetwenty-three annuals of the Annales des Sciences Psychiques, tomention only this one periodical of signal excellence, embrace forthe moment the whole field of the extraordinary and offer someinstances of all the abnormal manifestations of the inexplicable.We are henceforth able to classify them, to divide and subdividethem into general, species and varieties. This is not much, you maysay; but it is thus that every science begins and furthermore thatmany a one ends. We have therefore sufficient evidence, facts thatcan scarcely be disputed, to enable us to consult them profitably,to recognize whither they lead, to form some idea of their generalcharacter and perhaps to trace their sole source by graduallyremoving the weeds and rubbish which for so many hundreds andthousands of years have hidden it from our eyes.
3
Truth to tell, these supernatural manifestationsseem less marvelous and less fantastic than they did some centuriesago; and we are at first a little disappointed. One would thinkthat even the mysterious has its ups and downs and remains subjectto the caprices of some strange extra mundane fashion; or perhaps,to be more exact, it is evident that the majority of thoselegendary miracles could not withstand the rigorous scrutiny of ourday. Those which emerge triumphant from the test and defy our lesscredulous and more penetrating vision are all the more worthy ofholding our attention. They are not the last survivals of theriddle, for this continues to exist in its entirety and growsgreater in proportion as we throw light upon it; but we can perhapssee in them the supreme or else the first efforts of a force whichdoes not appear to reside wholly in our sphere. They suggest blowsstruck from without by an Unknown even more unknown than that whichwe think we know, an Unknown which is not that of the universe, notthat which we have gradually made into an inoffensive and amiableUnknown, even as we have made the universe a son of province of theearth, but a stranger arriving from another world, an unexpectedvisitor who comes in a rather sinister way to trouble thecomfortable quiet in which we were slumbering, rocked by the firmand watchful hand of orthodox science.
4
Let us first be content to enumerate them. We shallfind that we have table-turning, with its raps; the movements andtransportations of inanimate objects without contact; luminousphenomena; lucidite, or clairvoyance; veridical apparitions orhallucinations; haunted houses; bilocations and so forth;communications with the dead; the divining-rod; the miraculouscures of Lourdes and elsewhere; fluidic asepsis; and lastly thefamous thinking animals of Elberfeld and Mannheim. These, if I benot mistaken, after eliminating all that is in, sufficientlyattested, constitute the residue or caput mortuum of thislatter-day miracle.
Everybody has heard of table-turning, which may becalled the A B C of occult science. It is so common and so easilyproduced that the Society for Psychical Research has not thought itnecessary to devote special attention to the subject. I need hardlyadd that we must take count only of movements or “raps” obtainedwithout the hands touching the table, so as to remove everypossibility of fraud or unconscious complicity. To obtain thesemovements it is enough, but it is also indispensable that those whoform the “chain” should include a person endowed with mediumisticfaculties. I repeat, the experiment is within the reach of any onewho cares to try it under the requisite conditions; and it is asincontestable as the polarization of light or as crystallization bymeans of electric currents.
In the same group may be placed the movement andtransportation of objects without contact, the touches of spirithands, the luminous phenomena and materialization. Liketable-turning, they demand the presence of a medium. I need notobserve that we here find ourselves in the happy hunting-ground ofthe impostor and that even the most powerful mediums, thosepossessing the most genuine and undeniable gifts, such as thecelebrated Eusapia Paladino, are upon occasion— and the occasionoccurs but too often— incorrigible cheats. But, when we have madeevery allowance for fraud, there nevertheless remains aconsiderable number of incidents so rigorously attested that wemost needs accept them or else abandon all human certainty.
The case is not quite the same with levitation andthe wonders performed, so travelers tell us, by certain Indianjugglers. Though the prolonged burial of a living being is verynearly proved and can doubtless be physiologically explained, thereare many other tricks on which we have so far no authoritativepronouncement. I will not speak of the “mango-tree” and the“basket-trick, ” which are mere conjuring; but the “fire-walk” andthe famous “rope-climbing trick” remain more of a mystery.
The fire-walk, or walk on red-hot bricks or glowingcoals, is a sort of religious ceremony practiced in the Indies, insome of the Polynesian islands, in Mauritius and elsewhere. As theresult of incantations uttered by the high priest, the bare feet ofthe faithful who follow him upon the bed of burning pebbles orbrands seem to become almost insensible to the touch of fire.Travelers are anything but agreed whether the heat of the surfacetraversed is really intolerable, whether the extraordinary power ofendurance is explained by the thickness of the horny substancewhich protects the soles of the natives' feet, whether the feet areburnt or whether the skin remains untouched; and, under presentconditions, the question is too uncertain to make it worth while tolinger over it.
“Rope-climbing” is more extraordinary. The jugglertakes his stand in an open space, far from any tree or house. He isaccompanied by a child; and his only impedimenta are a bundle ofropes and an old canvas sack. The juggler throws one end of therope up in the air; and the rope, as though drawn by an invisiblehook, uncoils and rises straight into the sky until the enddisappears; and, soon after, there come tumbling from the blue twoarms, two legs, a head and so on, all of which the wizard picks upand crams into the sack. He next utters a few magic words over itand opens it; and the child steps out, bowing and smiling to thespectators.
This is the usual form taken by this particularsorcery. It is pretty rare and seems to be practised only by onesect which originated in the North-West Provinces. It has not yetperhaps been sufficiently investiga