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Cock Lane and Common-Sense by Andrew Lang
page 66 of 333 (19%)
Restoration. {67a} A light always comes among the Eskimo, when the
tornak, or familiar spirit, visits the Angekok or sorcerer. Here,
then, is harmony enough in the psychical beliefs of all time, as
when we learn that lights were flashed by the spirits who beset the
late Rev. Stainton Moses. {67b} Unluckily, while we have this cloud
of witnesses to the belief in a spiritual light, we are still
uncertain as to whether the seeing of such a light is a physical
symptom of hallucination. This is the opinion of M. Lelut, as given
in his Amulette de Pascal (p. 301): 'This globe of fire . . . is a
common constituent of hallucinations of sight, and may be regarded
at once as their most elementary form, and their highest degree of
intensity'. M. Lelut knew the phenomenon among mystics whom he had
observed in his practice as an 'alienist'. He also quotes a story
told of himself by Benvenuto Cellini. If we can admit that this
hallucination of brilliant light may be produced in the conditions
of a seance, whether modern, savage, or classical, we obtain a
partial solution of the problem presented by the world-wide
diffusion of this belief. Of course, once accepted as an element in
spiritualism, a little phosphorus supplies the modern medium with a
requisite of his trade. {68a}

Returning to Iamblichus, he classifies his phantasmogenetic agencies
by the _kind_ of light they show; greater or less, more or less
divided, more or less pure, steady or agitated (ii. 4). The arrival
of demons is attended by disturbances. {68b} Heroes are usually
very noisy in their manifestations: a hero is a polter-geist,
'sounds echo around' (ii. 8). There are also subjective moods
diversely generated by diverse apparitions; souls of the dead, for
example, prompt to lust (ii. 9). On the whole, a great deal of
experience is needed by the thaumaturgist, if he is to distinguish
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