evolution, may be under others one of the most powerful and terrific agents in nature. The mild form in which electricity was first known, made it a mere harmless plaything; it had as little significance to the ignorant in those days, as Reichenbach's od has to the same class in the present age. But, as new investigations opened new resources of the electric force, as the Leyden jar and the voltaic pile became known, and when our own immortal Franklin had demonstrated that this earthly power was the same as that that shakes the heavens, then it was proved that a general force of nature exhibits its mild or its tremendous energies precisely according to the circumstances and conditions of its evolution.

541. If, as Reichenbach has demonstrated, chemical action evolves the odic force and the odic light,- and if, as he has also demonstrated, certain metallic substances, and the friction of bodies, effect the like result, it is not to be denied that the same substances and processes, below the surface of the earth, will, according to conditions and circumstances, have a more or less powerful influence upon sensitive persons, standing over or near those localities, since this agent is found to have a specific influence upon the nerve-centres of particular persons. Now, as before shown, it is exactly at this point that these demonstrations meet with those of Thouvenel, Ritter, Amoretti, Kerner, and a host of other savans, with regard to the phenomena of rhabdomancy.

542. Although we are unable to assert from absolute knowledge that there are unusual chemical processes, or metallic lodes, or any such like causes of odylic emanation in the localities of dwellings where the phenomena above described take place, yet the phenomena in all such localities bear such evident characteristics of this nature, that it requires no small degree of superstitious presumption to deny the analogy, and to appropriate the latter to the support of popular delusions.

543. It is well known that a class of superstitions is connected with certain localities,-places where, at intervals, strange lights have been seen, and strange sounds heard.

The heights of the Blocksberg, in Germany, are famous for the strange and startling scenes that have been witnessed there by hunters, charcoal-burners, poachers, and woodcutters; and it was "on the Blocksberg that spirits, witches and devils, were believed to collect in great numbers at night." Everything," says Reichenbach, speaking of this superstition, "has an origin; and now we see that this myth is not without some foundation. It was discovered, long ago, that there are rocky points on the Blocksberg which are strongly magnetic, and divert the magnetic needle; more accurate investigations have shown that these rocks contain fragments of magnetic iron ore, for instance, the Floenstein, and Marcher, and others. The necessary deduction from this is, that they emit odic flames, and that these must be visible at night to sensitive eyes."

544. We are here to add another important deduction, namely, that as the odic force emanating from magnetic substances has a specific action upon the nerve-centres, and

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as we have shown in a number of instances - brings those centres into immediate relation to the substances or points whence issues the force, and as the agent also induces in the brain the so-called clairvoyant sense, it follows that those persons in the neighborhood of such localities as the Blocksberg, who are susceptible to the odic agency, will, without the reason being known, fall into trances, when they will be attracted to those localities, and either bodily or in the fancy of the brain pass to them. In the latter case, the brain is made to act in reference to such locality.

545. Now, it is a remarkable fact, which we have found exemplified in a great many instances (some of which will be noticed in the following chapter), that when the brain and nervous system are brought into the above-named condition, the odic flame or vapor, at the point to which the nervous system has this strong relation, will assume the human form, and, indeed, as we shall show, will have its action repeated there, as if the living being were present, instead of its ghost.

546. The feasts and sabbaths of witches are not therefore

a mere subjective fancy, but an outstanding representation, an action of the brain and nervous system repeated at a distant point, to which the former has become specifically related..

547. Now, it is this singular truth that unfolds, at once, not only some of the most bewildering mysteries of witchcraft, but those also of the so-called haunted localities, and the most difficult phenomena of the present day. It is not always, however, that the odic form will be eliminated, appreciable to the sense of sight.

That seems to depend upon conditions, partly on the side of the spectator, partly on the relative odylic condition of the local point occupied by the spectator, and partly upon the relative condition of the nerve-centres of the individual who is at a distance, and whose physical organism is represented in ghostly or odylic form.

548. The most usual phenomena presented are those which affect the sense of hearing. For example, the sounds of mechanics at work will at night frequently be represented in such localities, where the conditions of mundane agency are favorable.

549. According to what we have already shown, with regard to mundane emanations in the localities of mines, it would be natural to infer, that, if our views are correct, such strange phenomena should be found frequently to occur in those places. Accordingly, we find that strange knockings and the ghostly sounds of people at work in mines are facts well known to some of the most sensible men,- -to overseers and superintendents, as well as to the workmen themselves. Says C. Crowe, "There is a strong persuasion, I know, among the miners of Cornwall, and those of Mendip, that these visionary workmen are sometimes heard among them; on which occasion the horses evince their apprehensions by trembling and sweating." Of course, it would be quite impossible that a thousand exaggerations and superstitious notions should not grow out of the action of the wonderful mundane influences in relation to the nerve-centres, under such circumstances. It is generally believed, by the most

*Night Side of Nature, p. 280.

ignorant, that some horrid murder has been committed in such places; and on this account some of the most innocent and virtuous persons have fallen under suspicions of crimes that never have been committed in those places. Not a few instances of this kind have occurred in England and other European countries; and, according to present indications, in this country there is a class of persons fast verging to the same reprehensible whims. While, therefore, we would accept of the phenomena as the simple facts of nature, we are forced, as honest inquirers into their causes, to cast aside as worthless rubbish the vulgar superstitions with which they are so generally associated on the part of the ignorant.

Catharine Crowe's inquiries into the phenomena of the so-called haunted houses have been very extended and minute. Many of her accounts, however, are given in the language of the popular superstition, which she seems very much to favor. The reader of her work should therefore be exceedingly cautious of accepting her interpretations of mysterious phenomena.

550. The well-authenticated cases she has furnished afford indubitable evidence, in connection with the facts we have already advanced, that remarkable agencies are, in these special localities, brought out into wonderful development, and that those agencies (as developed in such places) are more or less frequently related to the organisms of particular persons, yet living, and at á distance, and in some cases representing the peculiarities of those who are dead. It is the latter class of facts (of which we have many in the present age and in this country) that staggers and confounds the reasoning powers of so many among us.

551. The error is in concluding that, because some of the characteristics of a dead being are represented in the phenomenal exhibitions of this mundane agent, that therefore the agent is no less than the soul or spirit of the dead person.

We shall in the next chapter present a class of facts which will throw no little light upon that most difficult question in these inquiries, and which do not seem to have been properly regarded. The facts will afford the reader a somewhat new view of nature, and of human relations.

CHAPTER X.

SHOWING STILL FURTHER THE RELATION OF LOCAL MUNDANE FORCE TO THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND OPENING THE MYSTERY OF THE PHENOMENA OF "SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATIONS."

THE mysterious phenomena brought to view in the last preceding chapter will now be still further considered in reference to their relation to the nervous peculiarities of certain persons.

552. If we take the case of Frederica Hauffe, commonly called the Seeress of Prevorst, we shall not only gain some clue to the agencies in action in the developement of the most wonderful phenomena of earlier times, but those now transpiring amongst us. Especially will this be found to result, when the facts in some other cases are considered in the same relation.

553. In chapters III. and IV. of Part First, we presented some facts relating to Frederica Hauffe which demonstrated the intimate relation of her nervous organism to the mysterious agencies of the physical world, indeed, the almost entire subjectiveness of her brain to the plays of physical forces. Thus "it was remarked in her case, that from earlier childhood the hazel wand' would turn readily under the influence of emanations of force from mineral veins and subterranean currents; and that she, amid her plays over the mountain sides, would be suddenly stopped as by an unseen power, and suffer unaccountable tremblings; that she experienced the same sensations on passing over graves, or on sitting in a church under the floor of which the bodies of the dead were deposited."