'The only begetter' of this work is Monsieur Lefebure, author of 'Les
Yeux d'Horus,' and other studies in Egyptology. He suggested the writing
of the book, but is in no way responsible for the opinions expressed.
The author cannot omit the opportunity of thanking Mr. Frederic Myers for
his kindness in reading the proof sheets of the earlier chapters and
suggesting some corrections of statement. Mr. Myers, however, is probably
not in agreement with the author on certain points; for example, in
the chapter on 'Possession.' As the second part of the book differs
considerably from the opinions which have recommended themselves to most
anthropological writers on early Religion, the author must say here, as he says later, that no harm can come of trying how facts look from a new
point of view, and that he certainly did not expect them to fall into the
shape which he now presents for criticism.
ST. ANDREWS: _April 3, 1898._
CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
II. SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES'
III. ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION
IV. 'OPENING THE GATES OF DISTANCE'
V. CRYSTAL VISIONS, SAVAGE AND CIVILISED
VI. ANTHROPOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS
VII. DEMONIACAL POSSESSION
VIII. FETISHISM AND SPIRITUALISM
IX. EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD
X. HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES
XI. SUPREME GODS NOT NECESSARILY DEVELOPED OUT OF 'SPIRITS'
XII. SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS
XIII. MORE SAVAGE SUPREME BEINGS
XIV. AHONE. TI-RA-WA. NA-PI. PACHACAMAC. TUI LAGA. TAA-ROA
XV. THE OLD DEGENERATION THEORY
XVI. THEORIES OF JEHOVAH
XVII. CONCLUSION
APPENDICES.
A. OPPOSITIONS OF SCIENCE
B. THE POLTERGEIST AND HIS EXPLAINERS
C. CRYSTAL-GAZING
D. CHIEFS IN AUSTRALIA
INDEX
* * * * *
THE MAKING OF RELIGION
I
_INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER_
The modern Science of the History of Religion has attained conclusions
which already possess an air of being firmly established. These
conclusions may be briefly stated thus: Man derived the conception of
'spirit' or 'soul' from his reflections on the phenomena of sleep, dreams, death, shadow, and from the experiences of trance and hallucination.
Worshipping first the departed souls of his kindred, man later extended
the doctrine of spiritual beings in many directions. Ghosts, or other
spiritual existences fashioned on the same lines, prospered till they
became gods. Final y, as the result of a variety of processes, one of
these gods became supreme, and, at last, was regarded as the one only God.
Meanwhile man retained his belief in the existence of his own soul,
surviving after the death of the body, and so reached the conception of
immortality. Thus the ideas of God and of the soul are the result of early fal acious reasonings about misunderstood experiences.
It may seem almost wanton to suggest the desirableness of revising a
system at once so simple, so logical, and apparently so wel bottomed on
facts. But there can never be any real harm in studying masses of evidence from fresh points of view. At worst, the failure of adverse criticism must help to establish the doctrines assailed. Now, as we shal show, there are two points of view from which the evidence as to religion in its early
stages has not been steadily contemplated. Therefore we intend to ask,
first, what, if anything, can be ascertained as to the nature of the
'visions' and hal ucinations which, according to Mr. Tylor in his
celebrated work 'Primitive Culture,' lent their aid to the formation of
the idea of 'spirit.' Secondly, we shall col ect and compare the accounts
which we possess of the High Gods and creative beings worshipped or
believed in, by the most backward races. We shall then ask whether these
relatively Supreme Beings, so conceived of by men in very rudimentary
social conditions, can be, as anthropology declares, mere developments
from the belief in ghosts of the dead.
We shall end by venturing to suggest that the savage theory of the soul
may be based, at least in part, on experiences which cannot, at present,
be made to fit into any purely materialistic system of the universe. We
shal also bring evidence tending to prove that the idea of God, in its
earliest known shape, need not logically be derived from the idea of
spirit, however that idea itself may have been attained or evolved. The
conception of God, then, need not be evolved out of reflections on dreams
and 'ghosts.'
If these two positions can be defended with any success, it is obvious
that the whole theory of the Science of Religion will need to be
reconsidered. But it is no less evident that our two positions do not
depend on each other. The first may be regarded as fantastic, or
improbable, or may be 'masked' and left on one side. But the strength of
the second position, derived from evidence of a different character, will
not, therefore, be in any way impaired. Our first position can only be
argued for by dint of evidence highly unpopular in character, and, as a
general rule, condemned by modern science. The evidence is obtained by
what is, at all events, a legitimate anthropological proceeding. We may
fol ow Mr. Tylor's example, and collect savage _beliefs_ about visions,
hal ucinations, 'clairvoyance,' and the acquisition of knowledge
apparently not attainable through the normal channels of sense. We may
then compare these savage beliefs with attested records of similar
_experiences_ among living and educated civilised men. Even if we attain
to no conclusion, or a negative conclusion, as to the actuality and
supernormal character of the alleged experiences, still to compare data of savage and civilised psychology, or even of savage and civilised illusions and fables, is decidedly part, though a neglected part, of the function of anthropological science. The results, whether they do or do not strengthen our first position, must be curious and instructive, if only as a chapter
in the history of human error. That chapter, too, is concerned with no
mean topic, but with what we may cal the X region of our nature. Out of
that region, out of miracle, prophecy, vision, have certainly come forth
the great religions, Christianity and Islam; and the great religious
innovators and leaders, our Lord Himself, St. Francis, John Knox, Jeanne
d'Arc, down to the founder of the new faith of the Sioux and Arapahoe. It
cannot, then, be unscientific to compare the barbaric with the civilised
beliefs and experiences about a region so dimly understood, and so fertile in potent influences. Here the topic will be examined rather by the method of anthropology than of psychology. We may conceivably have something to
learn (as has been the case before) from the rough observations and hasty
inferences of the most backward races.
We may illustrate this by an anecdote:
'The Northern Indians cal the _Aurora Borealis_ "Edthin," that is "Deer."
Their ideas in this respect are founded on a principle one would not
imagine. Experience has shown them that when a hairy deer-skin is briskly
stroked with the hand on a dark night, it will emit many sparks of
electrical fire.'
So says Hearne in his 'Journey,' published in 1795 (p. 346).
This observation of the Red Men is a kind of parable representing a part
of the purport of the fol owing treatise. The Indians, making a hasty
inference from a trivial phenomenon, arrived unawares at a probably
correct conclusion, long unknown to civilised science. They connected the
Aurora Borealis with electricity, supposing that multitudes of deer
in the sky rubbed the sparks out of each other! Meanwhile, even in
the last century, a puzzled populace spoke of the phenomenon as 'Lord
Derwentwater's Lights.' The cosmic pomp and splendour shone to welcome the loyal Derwentwater into heaven, when he had given his life for his exiled
king.
Now, my purpose in the earlier portion of this essay is to suggest that
certain phenomena of human nature, apparently as trivial as the sparks
rubbed out of a deer's hide in a dark night, may indicate, and may be
allied to a force or forces, which, like the Aurora Borealis, may shine
from one end of the heavens to the other, strangely illumining the
darkness of our destiny. Such phenomena science has ignored, as it so long ignored the sparks from the stroked deer-skin, and the attractive power of rubbed amber. These trivial things were not known to be al ied to the
lightning, or to indicate a force which man could tame and use. But just
as the Indians, by a rapid careless inference, attributed the Aurora
Borealis to electric influences, so (as anthropology assures us) savages
everywhere have inferred the existence of soul or spirit, intelligence
that
'Does not know the bond of Time,
Nor wear the manacles of Space,'
in part from certain apparently trivial phenomena of human faculty. These
phenomena, as Mr. Tylor says, 'the great intellectual movement of the last two centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless.'[1] I refer to al eged experiences, merely odd, sporadic, and, for commercial purposes, useless,
such as the transference of thought from one mind to another by no known
channel of sense, the occurrence of hallucinations which, _prima facie_,
correspond coincidental y with unknown events at a distance, all that is
called 'second sight,' or 'clairvoyance,' and other things even more
obscure. Reasoning on these real or al eged phenomena, and on other quite
normal and accepted facts of dream, shadow, sleep, trance, and death,
savages have inferred the existence of spirit or soul, exactly as the
Indians arrived at the notion of electricity (not so called by them, of
course) as the cause of the Aurora Borealis. But, just as the Indians
thought that the cosmic lights were caused by the rubbing together of
crowded deer in the heavens (a theory quite childishly absurd), so the
savage has expressed, in rude fantastic ways, his conclusion as to the
existence of spirit. He believes in wandering separable souls of men,
surviving death, and he has peopled with his dreams the whole inanimate
universe.
My suggestion is that, in spite of his fantasies, the savage had possibly
drawn from his premises an inference not wholly, or not demonstrably
erroneous. As the sparks of the deer-skin indicated electricity, so the
strange lights in the night of human nature may indicate faculties which
science, till of late and in a few instances, has laughed at, ignored,
'thrown aside as worthless.'
It should be observed that I am not speaking of 'spiritualism,' a word of
the worst associations, inextricably entangled with fraud, bad logic, and
the blindest credulity. Some of the phenomena al uded to have, however,
been claimed as their own province by 'spiritists,' and need to be rescued from them. Mr. Tylor writes:
'The issue raised by the comparison of savage, barbaric, and civilised
spiritualism is this: Do the Red Indian medicine-man, the Tatar
necromancer, the Highland ghost-seer, and the Boston medium, share the
possession of belief and knowledge of the highest truth and import,
which, nevertheless, the great intellectual movement of the last two
centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless?'
_Distinguo!_ That does not seem to me to be the issue. In my opinion the
issue is: 'Have the Red Indian, the Tatar, the Highland seer, and the
Boston medium (the least reputable of the menagerie) observed, and
reasoned wildly from, and counterfeited, and darkened with imposture,
certain genuine by-products of human faculty, which do not _prima facie_
deserve to be thrown aside?'
That, I venture to think, is the real issue. That science may toss aside
as worthless some valuable observations of savages is now universally
admitted by people who know the facts. Among these observations is the
whole topic of Hypnotism, with the use of suggestion for healing purposes, and the phenomena, no longer denied, of 'alternating personalities.' For
the truth of this statement we may appeal to one of the greatest of
Continental anthropologists, Adolf Bastian.[2] The missionaries, like
Livingstone, usual y supposed that the savage seer's declared ignorance--
after his so-called fit of inspiration--of what occurred in that state,
was an imposture. But nobody now doubts the similar oblivion of what has
passed that sometimes fol ows the analogous hypnotic sleep. Of a
remarkable cure, which the school of the Salpetriere or Nancy would
ascribe, with probable justice, to 'suggestion,' a savage example will be
given later.
Savage hypnotism and 'suggestion,' among the Sioux and Arapahoe, has been
thought worthy of a whole volume in the Reports of the Ethnological Bureau of the Smithsonian Institute (Washington, U.S., 1892-98). Republican
Governments publish scientific matter 'regardless of expense,' and the
essential points might have been put more shortly. They illustrate the
fact that only certain persons can hypnotise others, and throw light on
some peculiarities of _rapport._[3] In brief, savages anticipated us in
the modern science of experimental psychology, as is frankly acknowledged
by the Society for Experimental Psychology of Berlin. 'That many mystical
phenomena are much more common and prominent among savages than among
ourselves is familiar to everyone acquainted with the subject. The
_ethnological_ side of our inquiry demands penetrative study.'[4]
That study I am about to try to sketch. My object is to examine some
'superstitious practices' and beliefs of savages by aid of the comparative method. I shal compare, as I have already said, the ethnological evidence for savage usages and beliefs analogous to thought-transference,
coincidental hallucinations, alternating personality, and so forth, with
the best attested modern examples, experimental or spontaneous. This
raises the question of our evidence, which is al -important. We proceed to defend it. The savage accounts are on the level of much anthropological
evidence; they may, that is, be dismissed by adversaries as 'travel ers'
tales.' But the best testimony for the truth of the reports as to actual
belief in the facts is the undesigned coincidence of evidence from al
ages and quarters.[5] When the stories brought by travel ers, ancient and
modern, learned and unlearned, pious or sceptical, agree in the main, we
have al the certainty that anthropology can offer. Again, when we find
practical y the same strange neglected sparks, not only rumoured of
in European popular superstition, but attested in many hundreds of
depositions made at first hand by respectable modern witnesses, educated
and responsible, we cannot honestly or safely dismiss the coincidence of
report as indicating a mere 'survival' of savage superstitious belief, and nothing more.
We can no longer do so, it is agreed, in the case of hypnotic phenomena. I hope to make it seem possible that we should not do so in the matter of
the hallucinations provoked by gazing in a smooth deep, usual y styled
'crystal-gazing.' Ethnologically, this practice is at least as old as
classical times, and is of practically world-wide distribution. I shal
prove its existence in Australia, New Zealand, North America, South
America, Asia, Africa, Polynesia, and among the Incas, not to speak of
the middle and recent European ages. The universal idea is that such
visions may be 'clairvoyant.' To take a Polynesian case, 'resembling the
Hawaiian _wai harru_.' When anyone has been robbed, the priest, after
praying, has a hole dug in the floor of the house, and filled with water.
Then he gazes into the water, 'over which the god is supposed to place the spirit of the thief.... The image of the thief was, according to their
account, reflected in the water, and being perceived by the priest, he
named the individual, or the parties.'[6] Here the statement about the
'spirit' is a mere savage philosophical explanation. But the fact that
hal ucinatory pictures can really be seen by a fair percentage of educated Europeans, in water, glass bal s, and so forth, is now confirmed by
frequent experiment, and accepted by opponents, 'non-mystical writers,'
like Dr. Parish of Munich.[7] I shal bring evidence to suggest that the
visions may correctly reflect, as it were, persons and places absolutely
unknown to the gazer, and that they may even reveal details unknown to
every one present. Such results among savages, or among the superstitious, would be, and are, explained by the theory of 'spirits.' Modern science
has still to find an explanation consistent with recognised laws of
nature, but 'spirits' we shall not invoke.
In the same way I mean to examine al or most of the 'so-called mystical
phenomena of savage life.' I then compare them with the better vouched for modern examples. To return to the question of evidence, I confess that I
do not see how the adverse anthropologist, psychologist, or popular
agnostic is to evade the fol owing dilemma: To the anthropologist we say,
'The evidence we adduce is your own evidence, that of books of travel in
all lands and countries. If _you_ may argue from it, so may we. Some
of it is evidence to unusual facts, more of it is evidence to singular
beliefs, which we think not necessarily without foundation. As raising a
presumption in favour of that opinion, we cite examples in which savage
observations of abnormal and once rejected facts, are now admitted by
science to have a large residuum of truth, we argue that what is admitted
in some cases may come to be admitted in more. No _a priori_ line can here be drawn.'
To the psychologist who objects that our modern instances are mere
anecdotes, we reply by asking, 'Dear sir, what are _your_ modern
instances? What do you know of "Mrs. A.," whom you still persistently cite as an example of morbid recurrent hallucinations? Name the German
servant girl who, in a fever, talked several learned languages, which she
had heard her former master, a scholar, declaim! Where did she live? Who
vouches for her, who heard her, who understood her? There is, you know, no evidence at al ; the anecdote is told by Coleridge: the phenomena are said by him to have been observed "in a Roman Catholic town in Germany, a year or two before my arrival at Goettingen.... Many eminent physiologists and
psychologists visited the town." Why do you not name a few out of the distinguished crowd?'[8] This anecdote, a rumour of a rumour of a
Protestant explanation of a Catholic marvel, was told by Coleridge at
least twenty years after the possible date. The psychologists copy it,[9]
one after the other, as a flock of sheep jump where their leader has
jumped. An example by way of anecdote may be permitted.
According to the current anthropological theory, the idea of soul or
spirit was suggested to early men by their experiences in dreams. They
seemed, in sleep, to visit remote places; therefore, they argued,
something within them was capable of leaving the body and wandering about.
This something was the soul or spirit. Now it is obvious that this opinion of early men would be confirmed if they ever chanced to acquire, in
dreams, knowledge of places which they had never visited, and of facts as
to which, in their waking state, they could have no information. This
experience, indeed, would suggest problems even To Mr. Herbert Spencer, if it occurred to him.
Conversing on this topic with a friend of acknowledged philosophical
eminence, I illustrated my meaning by a story of a dream. It was reported
to me by the dreamer, with whom I am well acquainted, was of very recent
occurrence, and was corroborated by the evidence of another person, to
whom the dream was narrated, before its fulfilment was discovered. I am
not at liberty to publish the details, for good reasons, but the essence
of the matter was this: A. and B. (the dreamer) had common interests. A.
had taken certain steps about which B. had only a surmise, and a vague
one, that steps had probably been taken. A. then died, and B. in an
extremely vivid dream (a thing unfamiliar to him) seemed to read a mass of unknown facts, culminating in two definite results, capable of being
stated in figures. These results, by the very nature of the case, could
not be known to A., so that, before he was placed out of B.'s reach by
death, he could not have stated them to him, and, afterwards, had
assuredly no means of doing so.
The dream, two days after its occurrence, and after it had been told to
C., proved to be literally correct. Now I am not asking the reader's
belief for this anecdote (for that could only be yielded in virtue of
knowledge of the veracity of B. and C.), but I invite his attention to the psychological explanation. My friend suggested that A. had told B. al
about the affair, that B. had not listened (though his interests were
vital y concerned), and that the crowd of curious details, natural y
unfamiliar to B., had reposed in his subconscious memory, and had been
revived in the dream.
Now B.'s dream was a dream of reading a mass of minute details, including
names of places entirely unknown to him. It may be admitted, in accordance with the psychological theory, that B. might have received al this
information from A., but, by dint of inattention--'the malady of not
marking'--might never have been _consciously_ aware of what he heard. Then B.'s subconscious memory of what he did not _consciously_ know might break upon him in his dream. Instances of similar mental phenomena are not
uncommon. But the general result of the combined details was one which
could not possibly be known to A. before his death; nor to B. could it be
known at all. Yet B.'s dream represented this general result with perfect
accuracy, which cannot be accounted for by the revival of subconscious
memory in sleep. Neither asleep nor awake can a man remember what it is
impossible for him to have known. The dream contained no _prediction_ for
the results were now fixed; but (granting the good faith of the narrator)
the dream did contain information not normal y accessible.
However, by way of psychological explanation of the dream, my friend cited Coleridge's legend, as to the German girl and her unconscious knowledge of certain learned languages. 'And what is the evidence for the truth of
Coleridge's legend?' Of course, there is none, or none known to al the
psychologists who quote it from Coleridge. Neither, if true, was the
legend to the point. However, psychology will accept such unauthenticated
narratives, and yet will scoff at first baud, duly corroborated testimony
from living and honourable people, about recent events.
Only a great force of prejudice can explain this acceptance, by
psychologists, of one kind of marvel ous tale on no evidence, and this
rejection of another class of marvel ous tale, when supported by first
hand, signed and corroborated evidence, of living witnesses. I see only
one escape for psychologists from this dilemma. Their marvel ous tales are _possible_, though unvouched for, because they have always heard them and
repeated them in lectures, and read and repeated them in books. _Our_
marvel ous tales are impossible, because the psychologists know that they
are impossible, which means that they have not been familiar with them,
from youth upwards, in lectures and manuals. But man has no right to have
'clear ideas of the possible and impossible,' like Faraday, _a priori_,
except in the exact sciences. There are other instances of weak evidence
which satisfies psychologists.
Hamilton has an anecdote, borrowed from Monboddo, who got it from Mr. Hans Stanley, who, 'about twenty-six years ago,' heard it from the subject of
the story, Madame de Laval. 'I have the memorandum somewhere in my
papers,' says Mr. Stanley, vaguely. Then we have two American anecdotes by Dr. Flint and Mr. Rush; and such is Sir William Hamilton's equipment of
odd facts for discussing the unconscious or subconscious. The least
credible and worst attested of these narratives still appears in popular
works on psychology. Moreover, al psychology, except experimental
psychology, is based on anecdotes which people tel about their own
subjective experiences. Mr. Galton, whose original researches are wel
known, even offered rewards in money for such narratives about visualised
rows of coloured figures, and so on.
Clearly the psychologist, then, has no _prima facie_ right to object to
our anecdotes of experiences, which he regards as purely subjective. As
evidence, we only accept them at first hand, and, when possible, the
witnesses have been cross-examined personal y. Our evidence then, where it consists of travellers' tales, is on a level with that which satisfies the anthropologist. Where it consists of modern statements of personal
experience, our evidence is often infinitely better than much which is
accepted by the nonexperimental psychologist. As for the agnostic writer
on the No