CHAPTER XII THE CELTIC DOCTRINE OF RE-BIRTH AND OTHERWORLD SCIENTIFICALLY EXAMINED (Part 2)

[284] In this text, the Gwenhwyvar who is in the power of Melwas is referred to as Arthur's second wife Gwenhwyvar, for according to the Welsh Triads (i. 59; ii. 16; iii. 109) there are three wives of Arthur all named Gwenhwyvar. As Sir John Rhys observes, no poet has ever availed himself of all three, for the evident reason that they would have spoilt his plot (_Arth. Leg._, p. 35).

[285] D. ab Gwilym's Poetry (London, 1789), poem cxi, line 44. Cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 66.

[286] Malory, Book I, c. xxv. One account of Arthur's sword _Caledvwlch_ or _Caleburn_ describes it as having been made in the Isle of Avalon (Lady Ch. Guest's _Mabinogion_, ii. 322 n.; also _Myv. Arch._, ii. 306).

[287] Malory, Book IX, c. xv; Sir John Rhys takes the Lady of the Lake who sends Arthur the sword and the one who aids him afterwards (though, apparently by error, two characters in Malory) as different aspects of the one lake-lady _Morgen_ (_Arth. Leg._, p. 348).

[288] Merlin explained to Arthur that King Loth's wife was Arthur's own sister (Sommer's _Malory_, i. 64-5); and King Loth is one of the rulers of the Otherworld.

[289] Book XXI, c. vi.

[290] This poem, according to Gaston Paris, was translated during the late twelfth century from a French original now lost (_Romania_, x. 471). Cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 127.

[291] Malory, Book XII, cc. iii-x; Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, pp. 145, 164. Galahad, however, does not belong to the more ancient Arthurian romances at all, so far as scholars can determine; and, therefore, too much emphasis ought not to be placed on this episode in connexion with the character of Arthur.

[292] We should like to direct the reader's attention to the interesting similarity shown between this old story of _Kulhwch and Olwen_ and the fairy legend which we found living in South Wales, and now recorded by us on page 161, under the title of _Einion and Olwen_. As we have there suggested, the legend seems to be the remnant of a very ancient bardic tale preserved in the oral traditions of the people; and the prevalence of such bardic traditions in a part of Wales where some of the _Mabinogion_ stories either took shape, or from where they drew folk-lore material, would make it probable that there may even be some close relationship between the Olwen of the story and the Olwen of our folk-tale. If it could be shown that there is, we should be able at once to regard both Olwens as 'Fair-Folk' or of the _Tylwyth Teg_, and the quest of Kulhwch as really a journey to the Otherworld to gain a fairy wife.

[293] We may even have in the story of _Kulhwch and Olwen_ a symbolical or mystical account of ancient Brythonic rites of initiation, which have also directly to do with the spiritual world and its invisible inhabitants.

[294] Cf. J. Loth, _Les Mabinogion_ (Paris, 1889), p. 252 n.

[295] Cf. J. Loth, _Le Mabinogi de Kulhwch et Olwen_ (Saint-Brieuc, 1888), Intro., p. 7.

[296] Lady Ch. Guest's _Mabinogion_ (London, 1849), ii. 323 n.

[297] Cf. R. H. Fletcher, _Arthurian Material in the Chronicles_, in _Harv. Stud. and Notes in Phil. and Lit._, x. 20-1.

[298] Fletcher, ib., x. 29; 26.

[299] Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 7; and Rhys, _The Welsh People_{3} (London, 1902), p. 105.

[300] Cf. Fletcher, op. cit., x. 43-115; from ed. by San-Marte (A. Schulz), _Gottfried's von Monmouth Hist. Reg. Brit._ (Halle, 1854), Eng. trans. by A. Thompson, _The British History_, &c. (1718).

[301] Cf. Fletcher, op. cit., pp. 117-44.

[302] Sir Frederic Madden, _Layamon's Brut_ (London, 1847), ii. 384. Here the Germanic elves are by Layamon made the same in character and nature as Brythonic elves or fairies.

[303] Madden, _Layamon's Brut_, ii. 144.

[304] J. Bédier's ed., _Société des anciens textes français_ (Paris, 1902).

[305] E. Muret's ed., _Société des anciens textes français_ (Paris, 1903).

[306] A. C. L. Brown, _The Knight and the Lion_; also, by same author, _Iwain_, in _Harv. Stud. and Notes in Phil. and Lit._, vii. 146, &c.

[307] _Celtic Mag._, xii. 555; _Romania_ (1888); cf. Brown, ib.

[308] J. Loth, _Les Romans arthuriens_, in _Rev. Celt._, xiii. 497.

[309] _Bibliotheca Normannica_, iii, _Die Lais der Marie de France_, pp. 86-112.

[310] Cf. W. H. Schofield, _The Lays of Graelent and Lanval, and the Story of Wayland_, in Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass. of America, xv. 176.

[311] Cf. Schofield, _The Lay of Guingamor_, in _Harv. Stud. and Notes in Phil. and Lit._, v. 221-2.

[312] For editions, and fuller details of the fairy elements, see De La Warr B. Easter, _A Study of the Magic Elements in the_ ROMANS D'AVENTURE _and the_ ROMANS BRETONS (Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, 1906). See also Lucy A. Paton, _Studies in the Fairy Mythology of the Arthurian Romance_, Radcliffe College Monograph XIII (New York, 1903).

[313] Perc., vi. 235; cf. Easter's Dissertation, p. 42 n.

[314] _Joufrois_, 3179 ff.; ed. Hofmann und Muncker (Halle, 1880); cf. Easter's Diss., pp. 40-2 n.

[315] _Brun_, 562 ff., 3237, 3251, 3396, 3599 ff.; ed. Paul Meyer (Paris, 1875); cf. ib., pp. 42 n., 44 n.

[316] E. Anwyl, _The Four Branches of the Mabinogi_, in _Zeit. für Celt. Phil._ (London, Paris, 1897), i. 278.

[317] Cf. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 19, 21.

[318] _Black Book of Caermarthen_, xvii, stanza 7, ll. 5-8. This book dates from 1154 to 1189 as a manuscript; cf. Skene, _Four Anc. Books_, i. 3, 372.

[319] Stanzas 19-20. This book took shape as a manuscript from the fourteenth to fifteenth century, according to Skene. Cf. Skene, _Four Anc. Books_, i. 3, 464.

[320] See _A Fugitive Poem of Myrddin in his Grave. Red Book of Hergest_, ii. Skene, ib., i. 478-81, stanza 27.

[321] Chief general references: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, _L'Épopée celtique en Irlande_, _Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais_; Kuno Meyer and Alfred Nutt, _The Happy Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth_. Chief sources: the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ (A. D. 1100); the _Book of Leinster_ (twelfth century); the _Lais_ of Marie de France (twelfth to thirteenth century); the _White Book of Rhyderch_, Hengwrt Coll. (thirteenth to fourteenth century); the _Yellow Book of Lecan_ (fifteenth century); the _Book of Lismore_ (fifteenth century); the _Book of Fermoy_ (fifteenth century); the _Four Ancient Books of Wales_ (twelfth to fifteenth century).

[322] One of the commonest legends among all Celtic peoples is about some lost city like the Breton Is, or some lost land or island (cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, c. xv, and _Celtic Folk-Lore_, c. vii); and we can be quite sure that if, as some scientists now begin to think (cf. Batella, _Pruebas geológicas de la existencia de la Atlántida_, in _Congreso internacional de Americanistas_, iv., Madrid, 1882; also Meyers, _Grosses Konversations-Lexikon_, ii. 44, Leipzig und Wien, 1903) Atlantis once existed, its disappearance must have left from a prehistoric epoch a deep impress on folk-memory. But the Otherworld idea being in essence animistic is not to be regarded, save from a superficial point of view, as conceivably having had its origin in a lost Atlantis. The real evolutionary process, granting the disappearance of this island continent, would seem rather to have been one of localizing and anthropomorphosing very primitive Aryan and pre-Aryan beliefs about a heaven-world, such as have been current among almost all races of mankind in all stages of culture, throughout the two Americas and Polynesia as well as throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. (Cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 62, 48, &c.)

[323] _White Book of Rhyderch_, folio 291{a}; cf. Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, pp. 268-9.

[324] From _Echtra Condla_, in the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_. Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 192-3.

[325] Cf. Eleanor Hull, _The Silver Bough in Irish Legend_, in _Folk-Lore_, xii.

[326] Cf. Eleanor Hull, op. cit., p. 431.

[327] Classical parallels to the Celtic Otherworld journeys exist in the descent of Dionysus to bring back Semele, of Orpheus to recover his beloved Eurydike, of Herakles at the command of his master Eurystheus to fetch up the three-headed Kerberos--as mentioned first in Homer's _Iliad_ (cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 48); and chiefly in the voyage of Odysseus across the deep-flowing Ocean to the land of the departed (Homer, _Odyss._ xi).

[328] Servius, _ad Aen._, vi. 136 ff.

[329] _Voy. of Bran_, i, pp. 2 ff. The tale is based on seven manuscripts ranging in age from the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ of about A. D. 1100 to six others belonging to the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries (cf. ib., p. xvi).

[330] This tale exists in several manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; i. e. _Book of Ballymote_, and _Yellow Book of Lecan_, as edited and translated by Stokes, in _Irische Texte_, III. i. 183-229; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 190 ff.; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 326-33.

[331] The fountain is a sacred fountain containing the sacred salmon; and the nine hazels are the sacred hazels of inspiration and poetry. These passages are among the most mystical in Irish literature. Cf. pp. 432-3.

[332] Cf. Stokes's trans. in _Irische Texte_ (Leipzig, 1891), III. i. 211-16.

[333] The Greeks saw in Hermes the symbol of the Logos. Like Manannan, he conducted the souls of men to the Otherworld of the gods, and then brought them back to the human world. Hermes 'holds a rod in his hands, beautiful, golden, wherewith he spellbinds the eyes of men whomsoever he would, and wakes them again from sleep'--in initiations; while Manannan and the fairy beings lure mortals to the fairy world through sleep produced by the music of the Silver Branch.--Hippolytus on the Naasenes (from the Hebrew _Nachash_, meaning a 'Serpent'), a Gnostic school; cf. G. R. S. Mead, _Fragments of a Faith Forgotten_, pp. 198, 201. Or again, 'the Caduceus, or Rod of Mercury (Hermes), and the Thyrsus in the Greek Mysteries, which conducted the soul from life to death, and from death to life, figured forth the serpentine power in man, and the path whereby it would carry the "man" aloft to the height, if he would but cause the "Waters of the Jordan" to "flow upwards".'--G. R. S. Mead. ib., p. 185.

[334] Cf. Hennessy's ed. in _Todd Lectures_, ser. I. i. 9.

[335] Among the early ecclesiastical manuscripts of the so-called _Prophecies_. See E. O'Curry, _Lectures_, p. 383.

[336] Cf. Eleanor Hull, op. cit., pp. 439-40.

[337] Now in three versions based on the _L. U._ MS. Our version is collated from O'Curry's translation in _Atlantis_, i. 362-92, ii. 98-124, as revised by Kuno Meyer, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 152 ff.; and from Jubainville's translation in _L'Ép. celt. en Irl._, pp. 170-216.

[338] As Alfred Nutt pointed out, 'There is no parallel to the position or to the sentiments of Fand in the post-classic literature of Western Europe until we come to Guinevere and Isolt, Ninian and Orgueilleuse' (_Voy. of Bran_, i. 156 n.).

[339] See poem _Tir na nog_ (Land of Youth), by Michael Comyn, composed or collected about the year 1749. Ed. by Bryan O'Looney, in _Trans. Ossianic Soc._, iv. 234-70.

[340] Laeghaire, who also came back from Fairyland on a fairy horse, and fifty warriors with him each likewise mounted, to say good-bye for ever to the king and people of Connaught, were warned as they set out for this world not to dismount if they wished to return to their fairy wives. The warning was strictly observed, and thus they were able to go back to the _Sidhe_-world (see p. 295).

[341] Cf. _Bibliotheca Normannica_, iii, _Die Lais der Marie de France_, pp. 86-112.

[342] Cf. Stokes's trans., in _Rev. Celt._, ix. 453-95, x. 50-95. Most of the tale comes from the _L. U._ MS.; cf. _L'Ép. celt. en Irl._, pp. 449-500.

[343] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 385-401. The MS. text, _Echira Thaidg mheic Chéin_, or 'The Adventure of Cian's son Teigue', is found in the _Book of Lismore_.

[344] Summarized and quoted from translation by R. I. Best, in _Ériu_, iii. 150-73. The text is found in the _Book of Fermoy_ (pp. 139-45), a fifteenth-century codex in the Royal Irish Academy.

[345] Folios 113-15, trans. O'Beirne Crow, _Journ. Kilkenny Archae. Soc._ (1870-1), pp. 371-448; cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 260-1.

[346] Cf. Skene, _Four Ancient Books of Wales_, i. 264-6, 276, &c.

[347] Cf. _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 301 ff., from Additional MS. 34119, dating from 1765, in British Museum.

[348] _Giolla an Fhiugha_, or 'The Lad of the Ferrule', trans. by Douglas Hyde, in _Irish Texts Society_, London, 1899.

[349] Cf. Meyer and Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 147, 228, 230, 235; 161.

[350] The bulk of the text comes from the _Book of Fermoy_. Cf. Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xiv. 59, 49, 53, &c.

[351] J. Loth, _L'Émigration bretonne en Armorique_ (Paris, 1883), pp. 139-40.

[352] Ed. and trans. by W. Stokes, Calcutta, 1866. This _Vision_ has been erroneously ascribed to the celebrated Abbot of Iona, who died in 703; but Professor Zimmer has regarded it as a ninth-century composition; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 219 ff.

[353] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 195 ff.

[354] See J. G. Campbell, _The Fians_, pp. 260-7.

[355] _The Literary Movement in Ireland_, in _Ideals in Ireland_, ed. by Lady Gregory (London, 1901), p. 95.

[356] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 331.

[357] General reference: _Essay upon the Irish Vision of the happy Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth_, by Alfred Nutt in Kuno Meyer's _Voyage of Bran_. Chief sources: _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_; _Book of Leinster_; _Four Ancient Books of Wales_; _Mabinogion_; _Silva Gadelica_; _Barddas_, a collection of Welsh manuscripts made about 1560; and the _Annals of the Four Masters_, compiled in the first half of the seventeenth century.

[358] Cf. Plato, _Republic_, x; _Phaedo_; _Phaedrus_, &c.; Iamblichus, _Concerning the Mysteries of Egypt, Chaldaea, Assyria_; Plutarch, _Mysteries of Isis (De Iside et Osiride)_.

[359] He says:--'I, for my part, suspect that the spirit was implanted in them (rational creatures, men) from without' _(De Principiis_, Book I, c. vii. 4);... 'the cause of each one's actions is a pre-existing one; and then every one, according to his deserts, is made by God either a vessel unto honour or dishonour' (ib., Book III, c. i. 20). 'Whence we are of opinion that, seeing the soul, as we have frequently said, is immortal and eternal, it is possible that, in the many and endless periods of duration in the immeasurable and different worlds, it may descend from the highest good to the lowest evil, or be restored from the lowest evil to the highest good' (ib., Book III, c. i, 21);... 'every one has the reason in himself, why he has been placed in this or that rank in life' (ib., Book III, c. v, 4).

[360] Cf. Bergier, _Origène_, in _Dict. de Théologie_, v. 69.

[361] _Holy Bible_, Revised Version, St. Matt. xi. 14-15; cf. St. Matt. xvii. 10-13, St. Mark ix. 13, St. Luke vii. 27, St. John i. 21.

[362] Tertullian's conclusion is as follows:--'These substances ("soul and body") are, in fact, the natural property of each individual; whilst "the spirit and power" (cf. Mal. iv. 5) are bestowed as external gifts by the grace of God, and so may be transferred to another person according to the purpose and will of the Almighty, as was anciently the case with respect to the spirit of Moses' (cf. Num. xii. 2).--_De Anima_ c. xxxv; cf. trans, in _Ante-Nicene Christian Library_ (Edinburgh, 1870), xv. 496-7.

[363] Origen says:--'But that there should be certain doctrines not made known to the multitude, which are [revealed] after the exoteric ones have been taught, is not a peculiarity of Christianity alone, but also of philosophic systems, in which certain truths are exoteric and others esoteric' (_Origen against Celsus_, Book I, c. vii).

[364] How Tertullian almost literally accepted the re-birth doctrine is shown in his _Apology_, chapter xlviii, concerning the resurrection of the body. It is the corrupted form of the doctrine, viz. transmigration of human souls into animal bodies, which he therein, as well as in his _De Anima_ and elsewhere, chiefly and logically combats, as Origen also combated it. He first shows why a human soul must return into a human body in accordance with natural analogy, every creature being after its own kind always; and then, because the purpose of the Resurrection is the judgement, that the soul must return into its own body. And he concludes:--'It is surely more worthy of belief that a man will be restored from a man, any given person from any given person, but still a man; so that the same kind of soul may be reinstated in the same mode of existence, even if not into the same outward form' (_The Apology of Tertullian for the Christians_; cf. trans. by T. H. Bindley, Oxford, 1890, pp. 137-9).

[365] British Museum MS. Add. 5114, vellum--a Coptic manuscript in the dialect of Upper Egypt. Its undetermined date is placed by Woide at latest about the end of the fourth century. It was evidently copied by one scribe from an older manuscript, the original probably having been the _Apocalypse of Sophia_, by Valentius, the learned Gnostic who lived in Egypt for thirty years during the second century. See the translation of the Schwartze's parallel Latin version of _Pistis Sophia_ and its introduction, both by G. R. S. Mead (London, 1896).

[366] The chief passages are as follows, Jesus being the speaker:--'Moreover, in the region of the soul of the rulers, destined to receive it, I found the soul of the prophet Elias, in the aeons of the sphere, and I took him, and receiving his soul also, I brought it to the virgin of light, and she gave it to her receivers; they brought it to the sphere of the rulers, and cast it into the womb of Elizabeth. Wherefore the power of the little Iaô, who is in the midst, and the soul of Elias the prophet, are united with the body of John the Baptist. For this cause have ye been in doubt aforetime, when I said unto you, "John said, I am not the Christ"; and ye said unto me, "It is written in the Scripture, that when the Christ shall come, Elias will come before him, and prepare his way." And I, when ye had said this unto me, replied unto you, "Elias verily is come, and hath prepared all things, according as it is written; and they have done unto him whatsoever they would." And when I perceived that ye did not understand that I had spoken concerning the soul of Elias united with John the Baptist, I answered you openly and face to face with the words, "If ye will receive it, John the Baptist is Elias who, I said, was for to come"' (_Pistis Sophia_, Book I, 12-13, Mead's translation).

[367] 'The Saviour answered and said unto his disciples:--"Preach ye unto the whole world, saying unto men, 'Strive together that ye may receive the mysteries of light in this time of stress, and enter into the kingdom of light. Put not off from day to day, and from cycle to cycle, in the belief that ye will succeed in obtaining the mysteries when ye return to the world in another cycle'"' (_Pistis Sophia_, Book II, 317, Mead's translation).

[368] Cf. Bergier, _Manichéisme_, in _Dict. de Théol._, iv. 211-13.

[369] The _Refutation of Irenaeus_, until quite recently, has been the chief source of much of our knowledge concerning Gnosticism. It was written during the second century at Lyons, by Irenaeus, a bishop of Gaul, far from any direct contact with the still flourishing Gnosticism. But now with the discovery of genuine manuscripts of Gnostic works: (1) the _Askew Codex_, vellum, British Museum, London, containing the _Pistis Sophia_ (see above, p. 361 n.) and extracts from the _Books of the Saviour_; (2) the _Bruce Codex_ (two MSS.), papyrus, Bodleian Library, Oxford, containing the fragmentary _Book of the Great Logos_, an unknown treatise, and fragments; and (3) the _Akhmim Codex_ (discovered in 1896), papyrus, Egyptian Museum, Berlin, containing _The Gospel of Mary_ (or _Apocryphon of John_), _The Wisdom of Jesus Christ_, and _The Acts of Peter_, we are able to check from original sources the Fathers in many of their writings and canons concerning Gnostic 'heresies'; and find that Irenaeus, the last refuge of Christian haeresiologists, has so condensed and paraphrased his sources that we cannot depend upon him at all for a consistent exposition of Gnostic doctrines, which with more or less prejudice he is trying to refute. It is true that the age of these manuscripts has not been satisfactorily determined; in fact most of them have not yet been carefully studied. Very probably, however, as appears to be the case with the _Pistis Sophia_, they have been copied from manuscripts which were contemporary with or earlier than the time of Irenaeus, and hence may be regarded as good authority in determining Gnostic teachings. (Cf. all of above note with G. R. S. Mead, _Fragments of a Faith Forgotten_, London, 1900, pp. 147, 151-3.)

Many unprejudiced scholars are now unwilling to admit the rulings of the Church Councils which determined what was orthodox and what heretical doctrines among the Gnostic-Christians, because many of their dogmatic decisions were based upon the unscholarly _Refutation of Irenaeus_ and upon other equally unreliable evidence. The data which have accumulated in the hands of scholars about early Christian thought and Gnosticism are now much more complete and trustworthy than the similar data were upon which the Council of Constantinople in 553 based its decision with respect to the doctrine of re-birth; and the truth coming to be recognized seems to be that the Gnostics rather than the Church Fathers, who adopted from them what doctrines they liked, condemning those they did not like, should henceforth be regarded as the first Christian theologians, and mystics. If this view of the very difficult and complex matter be accepted, then modern Christianity itself ought to be allowed to resume what thus appears to have been its original position--so long obscured by the well-meaning, but, nevertheless, ill-advised ecclesiastical councils--as the synthesizer of pagan religions and philosophies. Some such view has been accepted by many eminent Christian theologians since Origen: i. e. the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More, openly advocated the re-birth doctrine in the seventeenth century; and in later times it has been preached from Christian pulpits by such men as Henry Ward Beecher and Phillips Brooks.

[370] See A. Bertrand, _La Religion des Gaulois, les Druides et le Druidisme_ (Paris, 1897); H. Jennings, _The Rosicrucians_ (London, 1887); the Work of Paracelsus; H. Cornelius Agrippa, _De Occulta Philosophia_ (Paris, 1567); H. P. Blavatsky's _Isis Unveiled_, and the _Secret Doctrine_ (London, 1888); and _Hermetic Works_, by Anna Kingsford and E. Maitland (London, 1885).

[371] Cf. Bergier, _Purgatoire_, in _Dict. de Théol._, v. 409. A Celt, a professed faithful and fervent adherent of the Church of Rome, whom I met in the Morbihan where he now lives, told me that he believes thoroughly in the doctrine of re-birth, and that it is according to his opinion the proper and logical interpretation of the doctrine of Purgatory; and he added that there are priests in his Church who have told him that their personal interpretation of the purgatorial doctrine is the same. Thus some Roman Catholics do not deny the re-birth doctrine. And such conversations as this with Catholic Celts in Ireland and Brittany lead me to believe that to a larger extent than has been suspected the old Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth may have been one of the chief foundations for the modern Roman Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory, whose origin is not clearly indicated in any theological works. For us this probability is important as well as interesting, and especially so when we remember the profound influence which the Celtic St. Patrick's Purgatory certainly exerted on the Church during the Middle Ages when the doctrine of Purgatory was taking definite shape (see our chapter x).

[372] _Barddas_ (Llandovery, 1862) is 'a collection (by Iolo Morganwg, a Bard) of original documents, illustrative of the theology, wisdom, and usage of the Bardo-Druidic System of the Isle of Britain'. The original manuscripts are said to have been in the possession of Llywelyn Sion, a Bard of Glamorgan, about 1560. _Barddas_ shows considerable Christian influence, yet in its essential teachings is sufficiently distinct. Though of late composition, _Barddas_ seems to represent the traditional bardic doctrines as they had been handed down orally for an unknown period of time, it having been forbidden in earlier times to commit such doctrines to writing. We are well aware also of the adverse criticisms passed upon these documents; but since no one questions their Celtic origin--whether it be ancient or more modern--we are content to use them.

[373] _Barddas_, i, 189-91.

[374] _Barddas_, i, 177.

[375] Preface to _Barddas_, xlii.

[376] One of the greatest errors formerly made by European Sanskrit scholars and published broadcast throughout the West, so that now it is popularly accepted there as true, is that Nirvana, the goal of Indian philosophy and religion, means annihilation. It does mean annihilation (evolutionary transmutation of lower into higher), but only of all those forces or elements which constitute man as an animal. The error arose from interpreting exoterically instead of esoterically, and was a natural result of that system of western scholarship which sees and often cares only to examine external aspects. Native Indian scholars who have advised us in this difficult problem prefer to translate _Nirvana_ as 'Self-realization', i. e. a state of supernormal consciousness (to be acquired through the evolution of the individual), as much superior to the normal human consciousness as the normal human consciousness is superior to the consciousness existing in the brute kingdom.

[377] _De Bel. Gal._, lib. vi. 14. 5; vi. 18. 1.

[378] Book V, 31. 4.

[379] _De Situ Orbis_, iii. c. 2: 'One point alone of the Druids' teaching has become generally known among the common people (in order that they should be braver in war), that souls are eternal and there is a second life among the shades.'

[380] i. 449-62.

[381] Lucan, i. 457-8; i. 458-62.

[382] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 345, 347 ff.

[383] _Folk-Lore_, xii. 64, &c.; also cf. Eleanor Hull, _The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature_ (London, 1898), Intro., p. 23, &c.

[384] What is probably the oldest form of a tale concerning Conchobhar's birth makes Conchobhar 'the son of a god who incarnated himself in the same way as did Lug and Etain' (cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 73).

[385] See _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, 101{b}; and _Book of Leinster_, 123{b}:--'_Cúchulainn mc dea dechtiri_.'

[386] We have already mentioned the belief that gods having their abode in the sun could leave it to assume bodies here on earth and become culture heroes and great teachers (see p. 309).

[387] From _Wooing of Emer_ in _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 97.

[388] _L'Épopée celt. en Irl._, p. 11.

[389] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. p. 74 ff.

[390] In the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, 133{a}-134{b}; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 336-43; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 49-52; cf. O'Curry, _Manners and Customs_, iii. 175.

[391] Cf. Stokes's ed. _Annals of Tigernach, Third Frag._ in _Rev. Celt._ xvii. 178. In the piece called _Tucait baile Mongâin_ in the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_, p. 134, col. 2, 'Mongan is seen living with his wife the year of the death of Ciaran mac int Shair, and of Tuathal Mael-Garb, that is to say in 544,' following the _Chronicum Scotorum_, Hennessy's ed., pp. 48-9. As D'Arbois de Jubainville adds, the Irish chronicles of this epoch are only approximate in their dates. Thus, while the _Four Masters_ (i. 243) makes the death of Mongan A. D. 620, the _Annals of Ulster_ makes it A. D. 625, the _Chronicum Scotorum_ A. D. 625, the _Annals of Clonmacnoise_, A. D. 624, and _Egerton MS._ 1782 A. D. 615 (cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 137-9).

[392] J. O'Donovan, _Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters_ (Dublin, 1856), i. 121.

[393] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 336-43; O'Curry, _Manners and Customs_ iii. 175; _L. U._, 133{a}-134{b}; and _Voy. of Bran_, i. 52.

[394] _Voy. of Bran_, i. 44-5; from _The Conception of Mongan_.

[395] Meyer's version, _Voy. of Bran_, i. 73-4.

[396] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, i. 137.

[397] _Voy. of Bran_, i. 22-8, quatrains 48-59, &c.

[398] In _L. U._; cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, pp. 311-22; and _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 47-53.

[399] In the Irish conception of re-birth there is no change of sex: Lug is re-born as a boy, in Cuchulainn; Finn as Mongan; Etain as a girl. But it seems that Etain as a mortal had no consciousness of her previous divine existence, while Cuchulainn and Mongan knew their non-human origin and pre-existence.

[400] Some time after this, according to one part of the tale, Eochaid stormed Midir's fairy palace--for the purpose localized in Ireland--and won Etain back, but the fairies cast a curse on his race for this, and Conaire, his grandson, fell a victim to it. Such a recovering of Etain by Eochaid may vaguely suggest a re-birth of Etain, through the power exerted by Eochaid, who, being a king, is to be regarded in his non-human nature as one of the Tuatha De Danann himself, like Midir his rival.

[401] Cf. _The Gilla decair_, in _Silva Gadelica_, pp. 300-3.

[402] Cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 76 ff. The Christian scribe's version fills up the space between Tuan's death and re-birth by making him pass eighty years as a stag, twenty as a wild boar, one hundred as an eagle, and twenty as a salmon (ib., p. 79). In this particular example, the uninitiated scribe (evidently having failed to grasp an important aspect of the re-birth doctrine as this was esoterically explained in the Mysteries, namely, that between death and re-birth, while the conscious Ego is resident in the Otherworld, the physical atoms of the discarded human body may transmigrate through various plant and animal bodies) appears to set forth as Celtic an erroneous doctrine of the transmigration of the conscious Ego itself (see p. 513 n.). In other texts, for example in the song which Amairgen (considered the Gaelic equivalent or even original of the Brythonic Taliessin) sang as he, with the conquering Sons of Mil, set foot on Ireland, there are similar transformations, attributed to certain heroes like Taliessin (see the _Mabinogion_) and Tuan mac Cairill during their disembodied states after death and until re-birth. But these transformations seem to echo poetically, and often rationally, a very mystical Celtic pantheism, in which Man, regarded as having evolved upwards through all forms and conditions of existence, is at one with all creation:--

I am the wind which blows o'er the sea; I am the wave of the deep; I am the bull of seven battles; I am the eagle on the rock; I am a tear of the sun; I am the fairest of plants; I am a boar for courage; I am a salmon in the water; I am a lake in the plain; I am the world of knowledge; I am the head of the battle-dealing spear; I am the god who fashions fire in the head; Who spreads light in the gathering on the mountain? Who foretells the ages of the moon? Who teaches the spot where the sun rests?

And Amairgen also says:--'I am,' [Taliessin] 'I have been' (_Book of Invasions_; cf. _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 91-2; cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 549; cf. Skene, _Four Ancient Books_, i. 276 ff.).

In later times, especially among non-bardic poets, there has been a similar tendency to misinterpret this primitive mystical Celtic pantheism into the corrupt form of the re-birth doctrine, namely transmigration of the human soul into animal bodies. Dr. Douglas Hyde has sent to me the following evidence:--'I have a poem, consisting of nearly one hundred stanzas, about a pig who ate an Irish manuscript, and who by eating it recovered human speech for twenty-four hours and gave his master an account of his previous embodiments. He had been a right-hand man of Cromwell, a weaver in France, a subject of the Grand Signor, &c. The poem might be about one hundred or one hundred and fifty years old.' It is probable that the poet who composed this poem intended to add a touch of modern Irish humour by making use of the pig. We should, nevertheless, bear in mind that the pig (or, as is more commonly the rule, the wild boar) holds a very curious and prominent position in the ancient mythology of Ireland, and of Wales as well. It was regarded as a magical animal (cf. p. 451 n.); and, apparently, was also a Druid symbol, whose meaning we have lost. Possibly the poet may have been aware of this. If so, he does not necessarily imply transmigration of the human soul into animal bodies; but is merely employing symbolism.

[403] See _Taliessin_ in the _Mabinogion_, and the _Book of Taliessin_ in Skene's _Four Ancient Books_, i. 523 ff.; cf. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 84, and Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 548, 551.

[404] Cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 548-50.

[405] Cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 259; and _Arth. Leg._, p. 252.

[406] Loth, _Les Mabinogion, Kulhwch et Olwen_, p. 187 n.

[407] _Le Morte D'Arthur_, Book XXI, c. vii.

[408] See works on Egyptian mythology and religion, by Maspero; also Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic_, p. 84, &c.

[409] F. L. Griffith, _Stories of the High-priests of Memphis_ (Oxford, 1900), c. iii. The text of this story is written on the back of two Greek documents, bearing the date of the seventh year of the Emperor Claudius (A. D. 46-7), not before published.

[410] It is interesting to compare with this episode the episodes of how the magic of St. Patrick prevailed over the magic of the Druids when the old and the new religions met in warfare on the Hill of Tara, in the presence of the high king of Ireland and his court.

[411] E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_ (London, 1904), p. 3.

[412] Prescott, _Conquest of Mexico and Conquest of Peru_.

[413] W. Crooke, _The Legends of Krishna_, in _Folk-Lore_, xi. 2-3 ff.

[414] _Laws of Manu_, vii. 8, trans, by G. Bühler.

[415] A. B. Cook, _European Sky-God_, in _Folk-Lore_, xv. 301-4.

[416] Cf. Lucian, _Somn._, 17, &c. See Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 13; also Tertullian, _De Anima_, c. xxviii, where Pythagoras is described as having previously been Aethalides, and Euphorbus, and the fisherman Pyrrhus.

[417] Cf. Huc, _Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet_, i. 279 ff.

[418] The doctrine of kingly rule by divine right was substituted after the conversion of the Roman Empire for the very ancient belief that the emperor was a god incarnate (not necessarily reincarnate); and the same christianized aspect of a pre-Christian doctrine stands behind the English kingship at the present day.

[419] A curious parallel to this Irish doctrine that through re-birth one suffers for the sins committed in a previous earth-life is found in the Christian scriptures, where in asking Jesus about a man born blind, 'Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?' the disciple exhibits what must have been a popular Jewish belief in re-birth quite like the Celtic one. See St. John ix. 1-2. Though the Rabbis admitted the possibility of ante-natal sin in thought, this passage seems to point unmistakably to a Jewish re-birth doctrine.

[420] It is interesting to note in connexion with these two complementary ideas what has been written by Mr. Standish O'Grady concerning strange phenomena witnessed at the time of Charles Parnell's funeral:--'While his followers were committing Charles Parnell's remains to the earth, the sky was bright with strange lights and flames. Only a coincidence possibly; and yet persons not superstitious have maintained that there is some mysterious sympathy between the human soul and the elements.... Those strange flames recalled to my memory what is told of similar phenomena said to have been witnessed when tidings of the death of the great Christian Saint, Columba, overran the north-west of Europe, as perhaps truer than I had imagined.'--_Ireland: Her Story_, pp. 211-12.

[421] Cf. M. Lenihan, _Limerick; its History and Antiquities_ (Dublin, 1866), p. 725.

[422] I take this to mean, somewhat as in the similar case of Dechtire, the mother of Cuchulainn (see p. 369, above), that the kind of soul or character which will be reincarnated in the child is determined by the psychic prenatal conditions which a mother consciously or unconsciously may set up. If this interpretation, as it seems to be, is correct, we have in this Welsh belief a surprising comprehension of scientific laws on the part of the ancient Welsh Druids--from whom the doctrine comes--which equals, and surpasses in its subtlety, the latest discoveries of our own psychological embryology, criminology, and so-called laws of heredity.

[423] The reader is referred to the Rev. T. M. Morgan's latest publication, _The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Newchurch, Carmarthenshire_ (Carmarthen, 1910), pp. 155-6.

[424] I found, however, that the original re-birth doctrine has been either misinterpreted or else corrupted--after Dr. Tylor's theory--into transmigration into animal bodies among certain Cornish miners in the St. Just region.

[425] The primitive character of the Incarnation doctrine is clear: Origen, in refuting a Jewish accusation against Christians, apparently the natural outgrowth of deep-seated hatred and religious prejudice on the part of the Jews, that Jesus Christ was born through the adultery of the Virgin with a certain soldier named Panthera, argues 'that every soul, for certain mysterious reasons (I speak now according to the opinions of Pythagoras, and Plato, and Empedocles, whom Celsus frequently names), is introduced into a body, and introduced according to its deserts and former actions'. And, according to Origen's argument, to assign to Jesus Christ a birth more disgraceful than any other is absurd, because 'He who sends souls down into the bodies of men' would not have thus 'degraded Him who was to dare such mighty acts, and to teach so many men, and to reform so many from the mass of wickedness in the world'. And Origen adds:--'It is probable, therefore, that this soul also which conferred more benefit by its residence in the flesh than that of many men (to avoid prejudice, I do not say "all"), stood in need of a body not only superior to others, but invested with all excellence' (_Origen against Celsus_, Book I, c. xxxii).

It is interesting to compare with Origen's theology the following passage from the _Pistis Sophia_, wherein Jesus in the alleged esoteric discourse to his disciples refers to the pre-existence of their souls:--'I took them from the hands of the twelve saviours of the treasure of light, according to the command of the first mystery. These powers, therefore, I cast into the wombs of your mothers, when I came into the world, and they are those which are in your bodies this day' (_Pistis Sophia_, i. II, Mead's translation).

[426] Cf. Nutt, _Voy. of Bran_, ii. 27 ff., 45 ff., 54 ff., 98-102.

[427] Cf. ib., p. 105.

[428] In this chapter, largely the result of my own special research and observations in Celtic archaeology, I wish to acknowledge the very valuable suggestions offered to me by Professor J. Loth, both in his lectures and personally.

[429] See David MacRitchie, _Fians, Fairies, and Picts_; also his _Testimony of Tradition_.

[430] Myers, in the _Survival of the Human Personality_ (ii. 55-6), shows that 'the departed spirit, long after death, seems pre-occupied with the spot where his bones are laid'. Among contemporary uncultured races there exists a theory parallel to this one arrived at through careful scientific research, namely, that ghosts haunt graves and monuments connected with the dead: according to the Australian Arunta the 'double' hovers near its body until the body is reduced to dust, the spirit or soul of the deceased having separated from this 'double' or ghost at the time of death or soon afterwards (Spenser and Gillen, _Nat. Tribes of Cent. Aust._).

[431] See _Les Grottes_, t. i; _Les Menhirs, Les Dolmens, Les Tumulus_, and _Cultes et observances mégalithiques_, t. iv.

[432] On April 17, 1909, at Carnac, in a natural fissure in the body of the finest menhir at the head of the Alignement of Kermario, I found quite by chance, while making a very careful examination of the geological structure of the menhir, a Roman Catholic coin (or medal) of St. Peter. The place in the menhir where this coin was discovered is on the south side about fifteen inches above the surface of the ground. The menhir is very tall and smoothly rounded, and there is no possible way for the coin to have fallen into the fissure by accident. Nor is there any probability that the coin was placed there without a serious purpose; and it is an object such as only an adult would possess. An examination of the link remaining on the coin, which no doubt formerly connected it with a necklace or string of prayer-beads, shows that it has been purposely opened so as to free it at the time it was deposited in the stone. Had the coin been accidentally torn away from a chain or string of prayer-beads the link would have presented a different sort of opening. But it would be altogether unreasonable to suppose that by any sort of chance the coin could have reached the place where I found it. I showed the coin to M. Z. Le Rouzic, of the Carnac Museum, and he considers it, as I do, as evidence or proof of a cult rendered to stones here in Brittany. The coin must have been secretly placed in the menhir by some pious peasant as a direct _ex voto_ for some favour received or demanded. The coin is somewhat discoloured, and has probably been some years in the stone, though it cannot be very old. And the offering of a coin to the spirit residing in a menhir is parallel to throwing coins, pins, or other objects into sacred fountains, which, as we know, is an undisputed practice.

[433] Cf. A. C. Kruijt, _Het Animisme in den Indischen Archipel_; quoted in Crawley's _Idea of the Soul_, p. 133.

[434] Cf. Weidemann, _Ancient Egyptian Doct. Immortality_, p. 21.

[435] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_.

[436] Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 143 ff., 169, 172.

[437] Marett, _The Threshold of Religion_, c. i.

[438] Mahé, _Essai_, p. 230.

[439] A famous controversy exists as to whether the Coronation Stone now in Westminster Abbey is the _Lia Fáil_, or whether the pillar-stone still at Tara is the _Lia Fáil_. See article by E. S. Hartland in _Folk-Lore_, xiv. 28-60.

[440] These 'idols' probably were not true images, but simply unshaped stone pillars planted on end in the earth; and ought, therefore, more properly to be designated fetishes.

[441] Stokes, in _Rev. Celt._, i. 260; Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 200-1.

[442] Very much first-class evidence suggests that the menhir was regarded by the primitive Celts both as an abode of a god or as a seat of divine power, and as a phallic symbol (cf. Jubainville, _Le culte des menhirs dans le monde celtique_, in _Rev. Celt._, xxvii. 313). As a phallic symbol, the menhir must have been inseparably related to a Celtic sun-cult; because among all ancient peoples where phallic worship has prevailed, the sun has been venerated as the supreme masculine force in external nature from which all life proceeds, while the phallus has been venerated as the corresponding force in human nature.

[443] _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 137.

[444] Professor J. Loth says:--'_Étymologiquement, le mot est composé de_ CROM, _courbe, arque, formant creux, convexe, et de_ LLECH, _pierre plate_' (_Rev. Celt._, xv. 223, _Dolmen_, _Leach-Derch_, _Peulvan_, _Menhir_, _Cromlech_). In Cornwall, Wales, and Ireland, instead of the peculiarly Breton word _dolmen_ (composed of _dol_ [for _tol == tavl_], meaning _table_, and of _men_ [Middle Breton _maen_], meaning _stone_) the word _cromlech_ is used. _Cromlech_ is the Welsh equivalent for the Breton _dolmen_, but Breton archaeologists use _cromlech_ to describe a circle formed by menhirs.

[445] Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 193-4.

[446] Ib., p. 192; from Sans-Marte's edition, pp. 108-9, 361.

[447] Ib., p. 193.

[448] Ib., pp. 194-5; cf. _Bibliotheca_ of Diodorus Siculus, ii. c. 47.

[449] Edith F. Carey, _Channel Island Folklore_ (Guernsey, 1909).

[450] Mahé, _Essai_, p. 198.

[451] Mahé, _Essai_, pp. 287-9.

[452] The place for holding a _gorsedd_ for modern Welsh initiations, under the authority of which the Eisteddfod is conducted, must also be within a circle of stones, 'face to face with the sun and the eye of light, as there is no power to hold a _gorsedd_ under cover or at night, but only where and as long as the sun is visible in the heavens' (Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 208-9; from _Iolo_ MSS., p. 50).

[453] Recently before the Oxford Anthropological Society, Dr. Murray argued that the satyrs of Greek drama may originally have been masked initiators in Greek initiations. (Cf. _The Oxford Magazine_, February 3, 1910, p. 173.)

[454] Edith F. Carey, op. cit.

[455] Mahé, _Essai_, pp. 126-9.

[456] Mahé, _Essai_, pp. 126-9.

[457] Rhys, _Arth. Leg._, p. 339.

[458] Edith F. Carey, op. cit.

[459] Montelius' _Les Temps préhistoriques en Suède_, par S. Reinach, p. 126. (Paris, 1895).

[460] H. Schliemann, _Mycenae_ (London, 1878), p. 213.

[461] Walhouse, in _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, vii. 21. These Dravidians are slightly taller than the pure Negritos, their probable ancestors; and Indian tradition considers them to be the builders of the Indian dolmens, just as Celtic tradition considers fairies and _corrigans_ (often described as dark or even black-skinned dwarfs) to be the builders of dolmens and megaliths among the Celts. Apparently, in such folk-traditions, which correctly or incorrectly regard fairies, _corrigans_, or Dravidians as the builders of ancient stone monuments, there has been preserved a folk-memory of early races of men who may have been Negritos (pygmy blacks). These races, through a natural anthropomorphic process, came to be identified with the spirits of the dead and with other spiritual beings to whom the monuments were dedicated and at which they were worshipped. Here, again, the Pygmy Theory is seen at its true relative value: it is subordinate to the fundamental animism of the Fairy-Faith.

[462] J. Déchelette, _Manuel d'Archéologie préhistorique_ (Paris, 1908), i. 468, 302, 308, 311, 576, 610, &c.

[463] This famous chambered tumulus 'measures nearly 700 feet in circumference, or about 225 feet in diameter, and between 40 and 50 feet in height' (G. Coffey, in _Rl. Ir. Acad. Trans._ [Dublin, 1892], xxx. 68).

[464] G. Coffey, in _Rl. Ir. Acad. Trans._, xxx. 73-92.

[465] Fol. 190 b; trans. O'Curry, _Lectures_, p. 505.

[466] Mr. Coffey quotes from the _Senchus-na-Relec_, in _L. U._, this significant passage:--'The nobles of the Tuatha De Danann were used to bury at Brugh (i. e. the Dagda with his three sons; also Lugaidh, and Oe, and Ollam, and Ogma, and Etan the Poetess, and Corpre, the son of Etan)' (G. Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 77). The manuscript, however, being late and directly under Christian influence, echoes but imperfectly very ancient Celtic tradition: the immortal god-race are therein rationalized by the transcribers, and made subject to death.

[467] W. C. Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_ (London, 1897), ii. 346 n.

[468] As translated in the _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 109-11.

[469] Borlase, op. cit., ii. 346-7 n.

[470] Borlase, op. cit., ii. 346-7 n.

[471] Ib., ii. 347 n.

[472] A good example of a saint's stone bed can be seen now at Glendalough, the stone bed of St. Kevin, high above a rocky shore of the lake.

[473] Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 73-4, from R. I. A. MS., by Michael O'Longan, dated 1810, p. 10, and translated by Douglas Hyde.

[474] Coffey, op. cit., xxv. 73-4, from R. I. A. MS. by Michael O'Longan, dated 1810, p. 10, and trans. by Douglas Hyde.

[475] Borlase, op. cit., ii. 347 n.

[476] O'Donovan, _Four Masters_, i. 22 n.

[477] Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 148-50.

[478] Cf. O'Curry, _Manners and Customs_, ii. 122; iii. 5, 74, 122; Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, pp. 150, 150 n.; Jubainville, _Essai d'un Catalogue_, p. 244.

[479] Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 194.

[480] Math ab Mathonwy's Irish counterpart is Math mac Umóir, the magician (_Book of Leinster_, f. 9{b}; cf. Rhys, _Trans. Third Inter. Cong. Hist. Religions_, Oxford, 1908, ii. 211).

[481] Rhys, ib., pp. 225-6; cf. R. B. _Mabinogion_, p. 60; _Triads_, i. 32, ii. 20, iii. 90. A fortified hill-top now known as Pen y Gaer, or 'Hill of the Fortress', on the western side of the Conway, on a mountain within sight of the railway station of Tal y Cafn, Carnarvonshire, is regarded by Sir John Rhys as the site of a long-forgotten cult of Math the Ancient. (Rhys, ib., p. 225).

[482] This stone basin, now in the centre of the inner chamber, seems originally to have stood in the east recess, the largest and most richly inscribed. It is 4 feet long, 3 feet 6 inches across, and 1 foot thick. (Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 14, 21).

[483] Cf. W. M. Flinders Petrie, _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_ (London, 1883), p. 201.

[484] All of the chief megaliths of this type, together with the chief alignements, which I have personally inspected--with the aid of a compass--in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany, are definitely aligned east and west. It cannot be said, however, that _all_ megalithic monuments throughout Celtic countries show definite orientation (see Déchelette's _Manuel d'Archéologie_).

[485] L. P. McCarty, _The Great Pyramid Jeezeh_ (San Francisco, 1907), p. 402.

[486] Jubainville, _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, p. 28.

[487] Maspero, _Les Contes populaires de l'Égypte Ancienne_,{3} p. 74 n.

[488] Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 426.

[489] W. H. Prescott, _Conquest of Peru_, i, c. 3.

[490] Rochefort, _Iles Antilles_, p. 365; cf. Tylor, _P. C._,{4} ii. 424.

[491] Colebrooke, _Essays_, vols. i, iv, v; cf. Tylor, _P. C._,{4} 425.

[492] _Illus. Hist. and Pract. of Thugs_ (London, 1837), p. 46; cf. Tylor, _P. C._,{4} ii. 425.

[493] Augustin, _de Serm. Dom. in Monte_, ii. 5; cf. Tylor, _P. C._,{4} ii. 427-8.

[494] Ezek. viii. 16. The popular opinion that Christians face the east in prayer, or have altars eastward because Jerusalem is eastward, does not fit in with facts.

[495] Cf. Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic_, p. 88; also Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 48-9.

[496] Though not a Mason, the writer draws his knowledge from Masons of the highest rank, and from published works by Masons like Mr. Carty's _The Great Pyramid Jeezeh_.

[497] Cf. Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, ii. 347 n.

[498] C. Piazzi Smyth, _Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid_ (London, 1890).

[499] Flinders Petrie, _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, pp. 169, 222.

[500] C. Piazzi Smyth, op. cit.

[501] In 1770, when New Grange apparently was not covered with a growth of trees as now, Governor Pownall visited it and described it as like a pyramid in general outline: 'The pyramid in its present state' is 'but a ruin of what it was' (Coffey, op. cit., xxx. 13).

[502] Le Dr. G. de C., _Locmariaquer et Gavr'inis_ (Vannes, 1876), p. 18.

[503] According to Le Dr. G. de C., op. cit., p. 18.

[504] Mr. Coffey says of similar details in Irish tumuli:--'In the construction of such chambers it is usual to find a sort of sill or low stone placed across the entrance into the main chamber, and at the openings into the smaller chambers or recesses; such stones also occur laid at intervals across the bottom of the passages. This forms a marked feature in the construction at Dowth, and in the cairns on the Loughcrew Hills, but is wholly absent at New Grange' (op. cit., xxx. 15). New Grange, however, has suffered more or less from vandalism, and originally may have contained similar stone sills.

[505] Flinders Petrie, _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, p. 216.

[506] Maspero, op. cit., p. 69 n., &c. The world-wide anthropomorphic tendency to construct tombs for the gods and for the dead after the plan of earthly dwellings is as evident in the excavations at Mycenae as in ancient Egypt and in Celtic lands.

[507] Cf. Bruns, _Canones apostolorum et conciliorum saeculorum_, ii. 133.

[508] Cf. F. Maassen, _Concilia aevi merovingici_, p. 133.

[509] Cf. Boretius, _Capitularia regum Francorum_, i. 59; for each of the above references cf. Jubainville, _Le culte des menhirs dans le monde celtique_, in _Rev. Celt._, xxvii. 317.

[510] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 427.

[511] See Villemarqué _sur Bretagne_.

[512] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 326; quoted from _De Glor. Conf._, c. 2.

[513] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 326; quoted from _De Glor. Conf._, c. 2.

[514] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 326; quoted from _Goth._, lib. ii.

[515] A. W. Moore, in _Folk-Lore_, v. 212-29.

[516] Cf. Rhys, _Arthurian Legend_, p. 247.

[517] Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, iii. 729.

[518] Stokes, _Tripartite Life of Patrick_, pp. 99-101.

[519] Ib., text, pp. 123, 323, and Intro., p. 159.

[520] Book II, 69-70; see our study, p. 267.

[521] Rennes _Dinnshenchas_, Stokes's trans. in _Rev. Celt._, xv. 457.

[522] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 323.

[523] The Celts may have viewed the mistletoe on the sacred oak as the seat of the tree's life, because in the winter sleep of the leafless oak the mistletoe still maintains its own foliage and fruit, and like the heart of a sleeper continues pulsing with vitality. The mistletoe thus being regarded as the heart-centre of the divine spirit in the oak-tree was cut with a golden sickle by the arch-druid clad in pure white robes, amid great religious solemnity, and became a vicarious sacrifice or atonement for the worshippers of the tree god. (Cf. Frazer, _G. B._,{2} iii. 447 ff.)

[524] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, xvi. 95; cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 218.

[525] _Dissert._, viii; cf. Rhys, ib., p. 219.

[526] Meineke's ed., xii. 5, 1; cf. Rhys, ib., p. 219. The oak-tree is pre-eminently the holy tree of Europe. Not only Celts, but Slavs, worshipped amid its groves. To the Germans it was their chief god; the ancient Italians honoured it above all other trees; the original image of Jupiter on the Capitol at Rome seems to have been a natural oak-tree. So at Dodona, Zeus was worshipped as immanent in a sacred oak. Cf. Frazer, _G. B._,{2} iii. 346 ff.

[527] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, pp. 333-4; quotation from _Hist. du Maine_, i. 17.

[528] Cf. Mahé, _Essai_, p. 334; quoted from _Lib._ VII, _indict._ i, _epist._ 5.

[529] Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, p. 409.

[530] Cf. Wood-Martin, _Traces of the Older Faiths in Ireland_, i. 305.

[531] W. Gregor, _Notes on Beltene Cakes_, in _Folk-Lore_, vi. 5.

[532] Temple, _Legends of the Panjab_, in _Folk-Lore_, x. 406.

[533] Lefèvre, _Le Culte des Morts chez les Latins_, in _Rev. Trad. Pop._, ix. 195-209.

[534] See _Folk-Lore_, vi. 192.

[535] The term 'People of Peace' seems, however, to have originated from confounding _sid_, 'fairy abode,' and _síd_, 'peace.'

[536] Cf. _Le Cycle Myth. Irl._, p. 102.

[537] The crocodile as the mystic symbol of Sîtou provides one key to unlock the mysteries of what eminent Egyptologists have erroneously called animal worship, erroneously because they have interpreted literally what can only be interpreted symbolically. The crocodile is called the 'son of Sîtou' in the _Papyrus magique_, Harris, pl. vi, ll. 8-9 (cf. Maspero, _Les Contes populaires de l'Égypte Ancienne_,[539] Intro., p. 56); and as the waters seem to swallow the sun as it sinks below the horizon, so the crocodile, as Sîtou representing the waters, swallows the Children of Osiris, as the Egyptians called themselves. On the other hand, Osiris is typified by the white bull, in many nations the sun emblem, white being the emblem of purity and light, while the powers of the bull represent the masculinity of the sun, which impregnates all nature, always thought of as feminine, with life germs.

[538] Cf. Maspero, op. cit., Intro., p. 49.

[539] Cf. Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, iii. 854.

[540] Cf. Lefèvre, _Rev. Trad. Pop._, ix. 195-209.

[541] J. G. Campbell collected in Scotland two versions of a parallel episode, but concerning Loch Lurgan. In both versions the flight begins by Fionn's foster-mother carrying Fionn, and in both, when she is tired, Fionn carries her and runs so fast that when the loch is reached only her shanks are left. These he throws out on the loch, and hence its name Loch Lurgan, 'Lake of the Shanks.' (_The Fians_, pp. 18-19).

[542] During the seventeenth century, the English government, acting through its Dublin representatives, ordered this original Cave or Purgatory to be demolished; and with the temporary suppression of the ceremonies which resulted and the consequent abandonment of the island, the Cave, which may have been filled up, has been lost.

[543] Thomas Wright, _St. Patrick's Purgatory_ (London, 1844), pp. 67-8.

[544] Wright, op. cit., p. 69.

[545] In the face of all the legends told of pilgrims who have been in Patrick's Purgatory, it seems that either through religious frenzy like that produced in Protestant revivals, or else through some strange influence due to the cave itself after the preliminary disciplines, some of the pilgrims have had most unusual psychic experiences. Those who have experienced fasting and a rigorous life for a prescribed period affirm that there results a changed condition, physical, mental, and spiritual, so that it is very probable that the Christian pilgrims to the Purgatory, like the pagan pilgrims who 'fasted on' the Tuatha De Danann in New Grange, were in good condition to receive impressions of a psychical nature such as the Society for Psychical Research is beginning to believe are by no means rare to people susceptible to them. Neophytes seeking initiation among the ancients had to undergo even more rigorous preparations than these; for they were expected while entranced to leave their physical bodies and in reality enter the purgatorial state, as we shall presently have occasion to point out.

[546] Wright, _St. Patrick's Purgatory_, pp. 62 ff.

[547] L. R. Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_ (Oxford, 1907), iii. 126-98, &c.

[548] Cf. Athenaeus, 614 A; Aristoph., _Nubes_, 508; and Harper's _Dict. Class. Lit. and Antiq._, p. 1615.

[549] Cf. O. Seyffert, _Dict. Class. Antiquities_, trans. (London, 1895), _Mithras_.

[550] Brasseur, _Mexique_, iii. 20, &c.; Tylor, _P. C._,{4} ii. 45.

[551] Cf. Hutton Webster, _Primitive Secret Societies_ (New York, 1908), p. 38, and _passim_.

[552] In the ancient Greek world the annual celebration of the Mysteries drew great concourses of people from all regions round the Mediterranean; to the modern Breton world the chief religious Pardons are annual events of such supreme importance that, after preparing plenty of food for the pilgrimage, the whole family of a pious peasant of Lower Brittany will desert farm and work dressed in their beautiful and best costumes for one of these Pardons, the most picturesque, the most inspiring, and the highest folk-festivals still preserved by the Roman Church; while to Roman Catholics in all countries a pilgrimage to Lough Derg is the sacred event of a lifetime.

In the Breton Pardons, as in the purgatorial rites, we seem to see the survivals of very ancient Celtic Mysteries strikingly like the Mysteries of Eleusis. The greatest of the Pardons, the Pardon of St. Anne d'Auray, will serve as a basis for comparison; and while in some respects it has had a recent and definitely historical origin (or revival), this origin seems on the evidence of archaeology to have been a restoration, an expansion, and chiefly a Christianization of prehistoric rites then already partly fallen into decay. Such rites remained latent in the folk-memory, and were originally celebrated in honour of the sacred fountain, and probably also of Isis and the child, whose terra-cotta image was ploughed up in a neighbouring field by the famous peasant Nicolas, and naturally regarded by him and all who saw it as of St. Anne and the Holy Child. Thus, in the Pardon of St. Anne d'Auray, which extends over three days, there is a torch-light procession at night under ecclesiastical sanction; as in the Ceres Mysteries, wherein the neophytes with torches kindled sought all night long for Proserpine. There are purification rites, not especially under ecclesiastical sanction, at the holy fountain now dedicated to St. Anne, like the purification rites of the Eleusinian worshippers at the sea-shore and their visit to a holy well. There are mystery plays, recently instituted, as in Greek initiation ceremonies; sacred processions, led by priests, bearing the image of St. Anne and other images, comparable to Greek sacred processions in which the god Iacchos was borne on the way to Eleusis. The all-night services in the dimly-lighted church of St. Anne, with the special masses in honour of the Christian saints and for the dead, are parallel to the midnight ceremonies of the Greeks in their caves of initiation and to the libations to the gods and to the spirits of the departed at Greek initiations. Finally, in the Greek mysteries there seems to have been some sort of expository sermon or exhortation to the assembled neophytes quite comparable to the special appeal made to the faithful Catholics assembled in the magnificent church of St. Anne d'Auray by the bishops and high ecclesiastics of Brittany. (For these Classical parallels compare Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, iii, _passim_.)

[553] Cf. Rhys, _Hib. Lect._, p. 411, &c.

[554] O'Curry, _Lectures_, pp. 586-7.

[555] There is this very significant legend on record about the Cave of Cruachan:--'Magh Mucrime, now, pigs of magic came out of the cave of Cruachain, and that is Ireland's gate of Hell.' And 'Out of it, also, came the Red Birds that withered up everything in Erin that their breath would touch, till the Ulstermen slew them with their slings.' (_B. of Leinster_, p. 288a; Stokes's trans., in _Rev. Celt._, xiii. 449; cf. _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 353.)

[556] Forbes, _Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern_ (Edinburgh, 1874), pp. 285, 345.

[557] Cf. Wright, _St. Patrick's Purgatory_, pp. 81-2.

[558] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 24; also Bergier, _Dict. de Théol._, v. 405.

[559] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 32. But there is some disagreement in this matter of dates: Petrus Damianus, _Vita S. Odilonis_, in the Bollandist _Acta Sanctorum_, January 1, records a legend of how the Abbot Odilon decreed that November 2, the day after All Saints' Day, should be set apart for services for the departed (cf. Tylor, _Prim. Cult._,{4} ii. 37 n.).

[560] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 1 n.

[561] Part II, sec. 4; c. 4, par. 8; cf. Bergier, _Dict. de Théol._, iv. 322.

[562] P. 11{a}, l. 19; in Stokes's _Tripartite Life_, Intro., p. 194.

[563] _Enchiridion_, chap. cx; _Testament of St. Ephrem_ (ed. Vatican), ii. 230, 236; Euseb., _de Vita Constant._, liv. iv, c. lx. 556, c. lxx. 562; cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 30-1.

[564] St. Ambroise, _de Obitu Theodosii_, ii. 1197; cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 31 n.

[565] Cf. Godescard, _Vies des Saints_, xi. 31-2.

[566] I am indebted to Mr. William McDougall, M.A., Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy in the University of Oxford, for having read through and criticized the first draft of this section; and while he is in no way responsible for the views set forth herein, nevertheless his suggestions for the improvement of their scientific framework have been of very great value. I must also express my obligation to him for having suggested through his Oxford lectures a good share of the important material interwoven into chapter xii touching the vitalistic view of evolution.

[567] Cf. C. Du Prel, _Philosophy of Mysticism_ (London, 1889), i. 7, 11.

[568] T. Ribot, _The Diseases of Personality_; cf. J. L. Nevius, _Demon Possession_ (London, 1897), pp. 234-5.

[569] _Proc. S. P. R._ (London), v. 167; cf. A. Lang, _Making of Religion_, p. 64.

[570] W. James, _Confidences of a 'Psychical Researcher'_, in _American Magazine_ (October 1909).

[571] A. Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_ (London, 1896), p. 35.

[572] According to Professor Freud, the well-known neurologist of Vienna, external stimuli are not admitted to the dream-consciousness in the same manner that they would be admitted to the waking-consciousness, but they are disguised and altered in particular ways (cf. S. Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, 2nd ed., Vienna, 1909; and S. Ferenczi, _The Psychological Analysis of Dreams_, in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, April 1910, No. 2, xxi. 318, &c.).

[573] Du Prel, op. cit., i. 135.

[574] G. F. Stout, _Mr. F. W. Myers on 'Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death'_, in _Hibbert Journal_, ii, No. 1 (London, October 1903), p. 56.

[575] F. W. H. Myers, _Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death_ (London, 1903), i. 131.

[576] R. L. Stevenson, _Across the Plains_, chapter on Dreams.

[577] Stout, op. cit., p. 54.

[578] Freud, op. cit.; Ferenczi, op. cit.; E. Jones, _Freud's Theory of Dreams_, in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, April 1910, No. 2, xxi. 283-308.

[579] Freud, _The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis_, in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, April 1910, No. 2, xxi. 203.

[580] Du Prel, op. cit., i. 33.

[581] Myers, op. cit., i. 134.

[582] Fechner, _Zentralblatt für Anthropologie_, p. 774; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., i. 92.

[583] Haddock, _Somnolism and Psychism_, p. 213; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., i. 93.

[584] Perty, _Mystische Erscheinungen_, i. 305; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., ii. 63.

[585] Kerner, _Seherin v. Prevorst_, p. 196; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., ii. 65.

[586] Chardel, _Essai de Psychologie_, p. 344; cf. Du Prel, op. cit., ii. 64.

[587] Cf. Du Prel, op. cit., i. 88-9.

[588] Myers, op. cit., chapter vi.

[589] Stout, op. cit., pp. 64, 61-2.

[590] Lang, _Mr. Myers's Theory of 'The Subliminal Self'_, in _Hibbert Journal_, ii, No. 3 (April 1904), p. 530.

[591] The peculiar and often unique characteristics of the fairy-folk of any given fairy-faith, as we have pointed out in chapter iii (pp. 233, 282), are to be regarded as being merely anthropomorphically coloured reflections of the social life or environment of the particular ethnic group who hold the particular fairy-faith; and, as Mr. Lang here suggests, when they are stripped of these superficial characteristics, which are due to such social psychology, they become ghosts of the dead or other spiritual beings.

Our own researches lead us to the conviction that behind the purely mythical aspect of these fairy-faiths there exists a substantial substratum of real phenomena not yet satisfactorily explained by science; that such phenomena have been in the past and are at the present time the chief source of the belief in fairies, that they are the foundation underlying all fairy mythologies. We need only refer to the following phenomena observed among Celtic and other peoples, and attributed by them to 'fairy' or 'spirit' agency: (1) music which competent percipients believe to be of non-human origin, and hence by the Celts called 'fairy' music, whether this be vocal or instrumental in sound; (2) the movement of objects without known cause; (3) rappings and other noises called 'supernatural' (cf. pp. 81 n., 481-4, 488; also pp. 47, 57, 61, 67, 71, 72, 74, 88, 94, 98, 101, 120, 124, 125, 131, 132, 134, 139, 148, 156, 172, 181, 187, 213, 218, 220, &c.).

[592] It is our hope that this book will help to lessen the marked deficiency of recorded testimony concerning 'fairy' beings and 'fairy' phenomena observed by reliable percipients. We have endeavoured to demonstrate that genuine 'fairy' phenomena and genuine 'spirit' phenomena are in most cases identical. Hence we believe that if 'spirit' phenomena are worthy of the attention of science, equally so are 'fairy' phenomena. The fairy-belief _in its typical_ or _conventional aspects_ (apart from the animism which we discovered at the base of the belief) is, as was pointed out in our anthropological examination of the evidence (pp. 281-2), due to a very complex social psychology. In this chapter we have eliminated all social psychology, as not being the essential factor in the Fairy-Faith. Therefore, from our point of view, Mr. Lang's implied explanation of the typical fairy-visions, that they are due to 'suggestion acting on the subconscious self', does not apply to the rarer kind of fairy visions which form part of our x-quantity (see pp. 60-6, 83-4, &c.). If it does, then it also applies to all non-Celtic visions of spirits, in ancient and in modern times; and the animistic hypothesis now accepted by most psychical researchers, namely, that discarnate intelligences exist independent of the percipient, must be set aside in favour of the non-animistic hypothesis. If, on the other hand, it be admitted that 'fairy' phenomena are, as we maintain, essentially the same as 'spirit' phenomena, then the belief in fairies ceases to be purely mythical, and 'fairy' visions by a Celtic seer who is physically and psychically sound do not seem to arise from that seer's suggestion acting on his own subconsciousness; but certain types of 'fairy' visions undoubtedly do arise from suggestion, _coming from a 'fairy' or other intelligence_, acting on the conscious or subconscious content of the percipient's mind (cf. pp. 484-7).

[593] Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, pp. 208, 35.

[594] Sir Oliver Lodge, _Psychical Research_, in _Harper's Mag._, August 1908 (New York and London).

[595] Sir Oliver Lodge, _The Survival of Man_ (London, 1909), p. 339.

[596] James, op. cit., pp. 587-9.

[597] Readers are referred to such authoritative works as the _Phantasms of the Living_ (London, 1886), by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore; to the _Report on the Census of Hallucinations of Modern Spiritualism_, by Professor Sidgwick's Committee; to the _Naturalisation of the Supernatural_ (New York and London, 1908), by F. Podmore; to the _Survival of the Human Personality_, by F. W. H. Myers; and other like works, all of which originate from the _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_ (London).

[598] C. Flammarion, _Mysterious Psychic Forces_, pp. 441, 431.

[599] Sir Wm. Crookes, _Notes of an Enquiry into Phenomena called Spiritual, during the years 1870-73_ (London), Part III, p. 87.

[600] See _Quart. Journ. Science_ (July 1871).

[601] Cf. Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, p. 281; and for other cases of objects moved without contact see ib., pp. 50, 52, 53, 58, 122 ff. See also F. Podmore's article on _Poltergeists_, in _Proceedings S. P. R._, xii. 45-115; and his _Naturalisation of the Supernatural_, chapter vii.

[602] Sir Wm. Crookes, op. cit., Part III, p. 100.

[603] Ib., p. 94.

[604] Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, pp. 60, 81, 139, &c.

[605] Using as a basis the data of Professor Sidgwick's Committee and the results earlier obtained by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore (see _Phantasms of the Living_), Mr. William McDougall shows concisely the probability of an apparition appearing within twelve hours of the death of the individual whom it represents. He says:--'... of all recognized apparitions of living persons, only one in 19,000 may be expected to be a death-coincidence of this sort. But the census shows that of 1,300 recognized apparitions of living persons 30 are death-coincidences, and that is equivalent to 440 in 19,000. Hence, of recognized hallucinations, those coincident with death are 440 times more numerous than we should expect, if no causal relation obtained.' And Mr. McDougall concludes: '... since good evidence of telepathic communication has been experimentally obtained, the least improbable explanation of these death-apparitions is that the dying person exerts upon his distant friend some telepathic influence which generates an hallucinatory perception of himself' (_Hallucinations_, in _Ency. Brit._, 11th ed., xii. 863).

[606] Myers, op. cit., ii. 65, 45 ff., 49 ff., &c.

[607] Nevius, _Demon Possession_, Introduction, pp. iv, vii; pp. 240-2, 144-5. In accordance with all such phenomena, psychical researchers have logically called spirits manifesting themselves through the body of a living person possessing spirits. And as in the case of Chinese demon-possession, the phenomena of mediumship often result in the moral derangement, insanity, or even suicide on the part of 'mediums' who so unwisely exhibit it without special preparation or no preparation at all, and too often in complete ignorance of a possible gradual undermining of their psychic life, will-power, and even physical health. All of this seems to offer direct and certain evidence to sustain Christians and non-Christians in their condemnation of all forms of necromancy or calling up of spirits. The following statement will make our position towards mediumship of the most common kind clear:

In Druidism, for one example, disciples for training in magical sciences are said to have spent twenty years in severe study and special psychical training before deemed fit to be called Druids and thus to control daemons, ghosts, or all invisible entities capable of possessing living men and women. And even now in India and elsewhere there is reported to be still the same ancient course of severe disciplinary training for candidates seeking magical powers. But in modern Spiritualism conditions are altogether different in most cases, and 'mediums' instead of controlling with an iron will, as a magician does, spirits which become manifest in _séances_, surrender entirely their will-power and whole personality to them.

[608] Cf. Sigmund Freud, _The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis_, in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, xxi, No. 2 (April 1910).

[609] The fact that all matter is capable of assuming a gaseous or invisible state furnishes good scientific reasons for postulating the actual existence of intelligent beings possessed of an invisible yet physical body. There may well be on and about our planet many distinct invisible organic life-forms undiscovered by zoologists. To deny such a possibility would be unscientific.

[610] Cf. _Communication adressée au D{r} J. Dupré_, p. 382 of an essay on _La Métempsycose basée sur les Principes de la Biologie et du Magnétisme physiologique_, in _Le Hasard_ (Paris, 1909), by P. C. Revel. Cases of regeneration among the aged are known, and these show how the subliminal life-forces try to renew the physical body when it is worn out (cf. Revel, ib., p. 372).

[611] Cf. Revel, op. cit., p. 295 ff.

[612] If scientists discover, as they probably will in time, what they call the secret of life, they will not have discovered the secret of life at all. What they will have discovered will be the physical conditions under which life manifests itself. In other words, science will most likely soon be able to set up artificially in a laboratory such physical conditions as exist in nature naturally, and by means of which life is able to manifest itself through matter. Life will still be as great a mystery as it is to-day; though short-sighted materialists are certain to announce to an eager world that the final problem of the universe has been solved and that life is merely the resultant of a subtle chemical compound.

[613] Professor Freud, after long and careful study, arrived at the following conclusion:--'The child has his sexual impulse and activities from the beginning, he brings them with him into the world, and from these the so-called normal sexuality of adults emerges by a significant development through manifold stages.' And Dr. Sanford Bell, in an earlier writing entitled _A Preliminary Study of the Emotions of Love between the Sexes_ (see _Amer. Journ. Psych._, 1902), came to a similar conclusion (cf. Freud, op. cit., pp. 207-8).

[614] Cf. Hans Driesch, _The Science and Philosophy of the Organism_ (London, 1908); and Henri Bergson, _L'Évolution créatrice_ (Paris, 1908).

[615] This Celtic view of non-personal immortality completely fits in with all the voluminous data of psychical research: after forty years of scientific research into psychics there are no proofs yet adduced that the human personality as a self-sufficient unit of consciousness survives indefinitely the death of its body. Granted that it does survive as a ghost for an undetermined period, generally to be counted in years, during which time it seems to be gradually fading out or disintegrating, there is no reliable evidence anywhere to show that a personality _as such_ has manifested through a 'medium' or otherwise after an interval of one thousand years, or even of five hundred years. We have, in fact, no knowledge of the survival of a human personality one hundred years after, and probably there are no good examples of such a survival twenty-five years after the death of the body. Such an eminent psychical researcher as William James recognized this drift of the data of psychics, and when he died he held the conviction that there is no personal immortality (see p. 505 n. following).

[616] Though not inclined toward the vitalistic view of human evolution, M. Th. Ribot very closely approaches the Celtic view of the Ego (or individuality) as being the principle which gives unity to different personalities, but he does not have in mind personalities in the sense implied by the Celtic Esoteric Doctrine of Re-birth:--'The Ego subjectively considered consists of a sum of conscious states' (comparable to personalities).... 'In brief, the Ego may be considered in two ways: either in its actual form, and then it is the sum of existing conscious states; or, in its continuity with the past, and then it is formed by the memory according to the process outlined above. It would seem, according to this view, that the identity of the Ego depended entirely upon the memory. But such a conception is only partial. Beneath the unstable compound phenomenon in all its protean phases of growth, degeneration, and reproduction, there is a something that remains: and this something is the undefined consciousness, the product of all the vital processes, constituting bodily perception and what is expressed in one word--the _coenæsthesis_.' (_The Diseases of Memory_, pp. 107-8).

William James, the greatest psychologist of our epoch, after a long and faithful life consecrated to the search after a true understanding of human consciousness, finally arrived at substantially the same conviction as Fechner did, that there is no personal immortality, but that the personality 'is but a temporary and partial separation and circumscription of a part of a larger whole, into which it is reabsorbed at death' (W. McDougall, _In Memory of William James_, in _Proc. S. P. R._, Part LXII, vol. xxv, p. 28). He thus virtually accepted the mystic's view that the personality after the death of the body is absorbed into a higher power, which, to our mind, is comparable with the Ego conceived as the unifying principle behind personalities. In one of his last writings, James explained his belief in such a manner as to make it coincide at certain points with the view held by modern Celtic mystics which has been presented above; the difference being that, unlike these mystics, James was not prepared to say (though he raised the question) whether or not behind the 'mother-sea' of consciousness there is, as Fechner believed, a hierarchy of consciousnesses (themselves subordinate to still higher consciousnesses, and comparable with so many Egos or Individualities) which send out emanations as temporary human personalities. The organic psychical forms (if we may use such an expression) of such temporary human personalities would have to be regarded from James's point of view as being built up out of the psychical elements constituting the 'mother-sea' of consciousness, just as the human body is built up out of the physical elements in the realm of matter:--'Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves, and Conanicut and Newport hear each other's foghorns. But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality' (used as synonymous with personality and not in our distinct sense) 'builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir. Our "normal" consciousness' (the personality as we distinguish it from the Ego or individuality) 'is circumscribed for adaptation to our external earthly environment, but the fence is weak in spots, and fitful influences from beyond break in, showing the otherwise unverifiable common connexion. Not only psychic research, but metaphysical philosophy and speculative biology are led in their own ways to look with favour on some such "pan-psychic" view of the universe as this.' (W. James, _The Confidences of a Psychical Researcher_, in _The American Magazine_, October 1909). Again, James wrote:--'The drift of all the evidence we have seems to me to sweep us very strongly towards the belief in some form of superhuman life with which we may, unknown to ourselves, be co-conscious.' (_A Pluralistic Universe_, New York, 1909, p. 309.)

[617] W. James, _Varieties of Religious Experience_ (London, 1902), pp. 511, 236 n.

[618] M. Th. Ribot, in _Diseases of Memory_ (London, 1882), pp. 82-98 ff., gives numerous examples of such loss and recovery of memory.

[619] Cf. Freud, op. cit., pp. 192, 204-5, &c.

[620] Cf. A. Moll, _Hypnotism_ (London, 1890), pp. 141 ff., 126.

[621] Cf. A. Moll, _Hypnotism_ (London, 1890), pp. 141 ff., 126.

[622] Cf. Freud, op. cit., p. 192.

[623] Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, 2nd ed. (Vienna, 1906); cf. S. Ferenczi, _The Psychological Analysis of Dreams_, in _Amer. Journ. Psych._ (April 1910), xxi, No. 2, p. 326.

[624] A similar state of high development is to be assumed for a great Celtic hero like Arthur, who were he to be re-born would (as is said to have been the case with King Mongan, the reincarnation of Finn) bring with him memory of his past: unlike the consciousness of the normal man, the consciousness of one of the Divine Ones is normally the subconsciousness, the consciousness of the individuality; and not the personal consciousness, which, like the personality, is non-permanent _in itself_. This further illustrates the Celtic theory of non-personal immortality.

[625] Ribot, op. cit., p. 100 ff.

[626] Cf. Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_, pp. 217 ff. _Blackwood's Magazine_, cxxix (January 1881), contains a remarkable account of a child who remembered previous lives. Lord Lindsay, in his _Letters_ (ed. of 1847, p. 351), refers to a feeling when he beheld the river Kadisha descending from Lebanon, of having in a previous life seen the same scene. Dickens in his _Pictures from Italy_ testifies to a parallel experience. E. D. Walker, in his interesting work on _Reincarnation_ (pp. 42-5) has brought together many other well-attested cases of people who likewise have thought they could remember fragments of a former state of conscious existence. In his diary, under date of February 17, 1828, Sir Walter Scott wrote as follows:--'I cannot, I am sure, tell if it is worth marking down, that yesterday, at dinner-time, I was strangely haunted by what I would call the sense of pre-existence, viz. a confused idea that nothing that passed was said for the first time.' Lockhart, _Life of Scott_ (first ed.), vii. 114. Bulwer Lytton in _Godolphin_ (chapter xv), and Edgar Allen Poe in _Eureka_, record similar experiences. Mr. H. Fielding Hall, in _The Soul of a People_{4} (London, 1902), pp. 290-308, reports several very remarkable cases of responsible natives of Burma who stated that they could recall former lives passed by them as men and women. Mr. Hall has carefully investigated these cases, and gives us the impression that they are worthy of scientific consideration.

[627] Cf. Ferenczi, op. cit., p. 316, &c. Professor Freud's theory of dreams supports entirely, but does not imply our hypothesis that some (and probably many) abnormal dreams of a rare kind, whether good or bad in tendency, may be due to the latent content of subconsciousness, out of which they undoubtedly arise, having been collected and carried over from a previous state of consciousness parallel to our present one. In respect to our present life Professor Freud holds, as a result of psycho-analysis of thousands of dream subjects, that the latent content of every dream in the adult is directly dependent upon mental processes which frequently reach back to the earliest childhood; and he gives detailed cases in illustration. In other words, there is always a latent dream-material behind the conscious dream-content, and probably a part of it was innate in the child at birth, and hence, according to our view, was pre-existent. (Cf. Ernest Jones, _Freud's Theory of Dreams_, in _Amer. Journ. Psych._, April 1910, xxi, No. 2, pp. 301 ff.)

[628] Cf. Du Prel, _Philosophy of Mysticism_, ii. 25 ff., 34 ff.

[629] _The Dream of Ravan_, in _Dublin Univ. Mag._, xliii. 468.

[630] Myers, in _Proc. S. P. R._, vii. 305.

[631] James, _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 483.

[632] The esoteric teaching in many of the mystic schools of antiquity was that the atoms of each human body transmigrate through all lower forms of life during the long period supposed to intervene between death and re-birth of the individuality. This doctrine seems to be one of the main sources of the corruption which crept into the ancient re-birth doctrines and transformed many of them into doctrines of transmigration of the human soul into animal and plant bodies; and some unscrupulous priesthoods openly taught such corrupted doctrines as a means of making the ignorant populace submissive to ecclesiastical rule, the theological theory expounded by such priesthoods being that the evil-doer, but not the keeper of the letter of the canonical law, is condemned to expiate his sins through birth in brute bodies. The pure form of the mystic doctrine was that after the lapse of the long period of disembodiment the individuality reconstructs its human body anew by drawing to itself the identical atoms which constituted its previous human body--these atoms, and not the individuality, having transmigrated through all the lower kingdoms. Such an esoteric doctrine probably lies behind the exoteric Egyptian teaching that the human soul after the death of its body passes through all plant and animal bodies during a period of three thousand years, after which it returns to human embodiment. Some scholars have held that the exoteric interpretation of this theory and its consequent literal interpretation as a transmigration doctrine led the Egyptians to mummify the bodies of their dead. Cf. Lucretius, _De Rerum Natura_, Book III, ll. 843-61; and Herodotus, Book II, on Egypt.

[633] Cf. Dr. L. S. Fugairon's _La Survivance de l'âme, ou la Mort et la Renaissance chez les êtres vivants; études de physiologie et d'embryologie philosophiques_ (Paris, 1907); cf. Revel, _Le Hasard_, p. 457.

[634] Darwin never considered or attempted to suggest what it is that of itself really evolves, for it cannot be the physical body which only _grows_ from immaturity to maturity and then dissolves. Darwin thus overlooked the essential factor in his whole doctrine; while the Druids and other ancients, wiser than we have been willing to admit, seem not only to have anticipated Darwin by thousands of years, but also to have quite surpassed him in setting up their doctrine of re-birth, which explains both the physical and psychical evolution of man.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

Superscripted letters are indicated by {superscript}.

The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations.

Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors have been silently closed while those requiring interpretation have been left open.

Other punctuation has been corrected without note.

The following misprints have been corrected: "Fortelling" standardized to "foretelling" (page 213) "fom" corrected to "from" (footnote 342) "Name" corrected to "Names" (Index)

Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.

The following symbols were substituted for images on pages 272 and 273: Maltese cross = [C] Triangle = [T] Jupiter = [J] Mercury = [M] Venus = [V] Saturn = [S] Moon = [Mo] Sun = [O] Large Asterisk [*]