To prove this by examples is our present business. In a thoroughly
scientific treatise, the foundation of the whole would, of course,
be laid in a discussion of psychology, physiology, and the phenomena
of hypnotism. But on these matters an amateur opinion is of less
than no value. The various schools of psychologists, neurologists,
'alienists,' and employers of hypnotism for curative or experimental
purposes, appear to differ very widely among themselves, and the
layman may read but he cannot criticise their works. The essays
which follow are historical, anthropological, antiquarian.





SAVAGE SPIRITUALISM.


'Shadow' or Magic of the Dene Hareskins: its four categories.
These are characteristic of all Savage Spiritualism. The subject
somewhat neglected by Anthropologists. Uniformity of phenomena.
Mr. Tylor's theory of the origin of 'Animism'. Question whether
there are any phenomena not explained by Mr. Tylor's theory.
Examples of uniformity. The savage hypnotic trance. Hareskin
examples. Cases from British Guiana. Australian rapping spirits.
Maori oracles. A Maori 'seance'. The North American Indian Magic
Lodge. Modern and old Jesuit descriptions. Movements of the Lodge.
Insensibility of Red Indian Medium to fire. Similar case of D. D.
Home. Flying table in Thibet. Other instances. Montezuma's
'astral body'. Miracles. Question of Diffusion by borrowing, or of
independent evolution.