I have no fault to find with Dr. Tuke for extending this same principle of sympathetic attention to the case of stigmatization, when he says of S. Francis, absorbed in ardent realization of the Passion of Christ, "So clearly defined an idea, so ardent a faith intensifying its operation, were sufficient to reflect it in his body."[61]
I cannot help thinking that the Fathers recognized the creative power of the imagination when they denounced so fiercely the masquerading in beast-skins on the calends of January. "Is not all this false and mad when God-formed men transform themselves into cattle, or wild beasts, or monsters?"[62] The numerous accounts of the were-wolf transformation, both in classical and mediæval times, all point in the same direction; and Mr. Baring-Gould brings good authority for thinking that the etymology of the "Barsark" rage of the Norsemen designates it as an outcome of their bear-skins.
The direct action of the imagination upon external objects, attributed to Avicenna (_Muratori della Fantasia_, p. 268), is, of course, something further. The Arabian philosopher is reported to have said that, "by a strong action of the fancy, one might kill a camel." At the same time, the signature on the fœtus, not merely of the emotion of the mother's fear or desire, but of the object or occasion of it, would seem to imply some action _ab extra_, as well as such cases as that of the sympathetic bruise referred to above.
That the ordinary acts of the imagination, for all their airy and impalpable play, do leave behind them most momentous results, forming, as it were, the very mould and measure of our whole life, is a matter of constant experience. Hence it is that castles in the air are often so costly, to say nothing of the danger that, though we have built them ourselves, we may find them haunted.
I am quite prepared to admit what the Germans have called a night-side of nature--that is, various rudimental powers of doing many things of a seemingly miraculous character, which powers do very probably often co-operate in the production of spiritualistic phenomena, and under peculiar organic conditions, without any spiritual influence, may be brought into considerably developed action. Moreover, as it is, of course, in the investigation of these natural bases of magic that science will succeed so far as it succeeds at all, it is only right that it should expatiate in them. My complaint is that the modern attempt to reduce spiritualism to psychic force involves an inadequate analysis of the facts presented; and spiritualists have surely some ground to complain of the _prima facie_ disingenuousness of a manœuvre which, in regard to the same phenomena, began with, "This is not natural, therefore it is certainly not true," and ends with, "This is true, therefore it is certainly natural."