The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1897-05-14
HALLUCINATIONS.
SOME or THE CURIOUS EXAMPLES
RECORDED IN HISTORY.

SOME or THE CURIOUS EXAMPLE,
RECORDED IN HISTORY.
The Lives Of Many Great Men Have Bsez
Influenced BY visioas -FrsQusntly rhel
Have neen Prophetic; ~ Other Times
They Have Caused Tragedies.
The importance of the part played by
dominant Authorizations in the history
Of the world can scarcely be overrated,
Julius Caesar. Napoleon Bonaparte. Soc
rates. Luther. Ignatius Loyola. are LI.
q few Of the great men whose lives were
intimately entwined with ruling delu'
sions. In these cases the illusions seem
to have been persistent and not to have
been produced by any voluntary effort
on the part Of the seer. On the other
hand. Talms could walk on to the stage
and after staring ut the brilliant and
applauding audience for q few seconds
would see nothing but rows Of grinninG
skeletons. In this he seems to have fore
stalled Herr Roentgen. for the skeletons
were in the exact positions Of the mem
bers Of the audience and changed their
pastures with every variation Of their
positions. 1t was 70 this grisly house
that the great actor delivered some Of
his grandest histrionic efforts.
Goethe. a might be expected, called
up pleasanter and more peaceful visions.
At will he could see q flower in the cen
ter Of his visual field. He thus described
it: This flower does not for a moment
preserve its form; it Is generally decom-
posed, and from its interior are born
other flowers with colored, or sometimes
green, petals. These are not natural
flowers, but fantastic. nevertheless regu-
lar, figures. such as the roses Of sculp-
tors"
The capacity for thus producing at
will . lovely object had. however, the
disadvantage described by Abercrombie
in his famous Inquiry Concerning the
Intellectual Powers" that they were
not a q rule dismissible at pleasure.
Blake. after studying q model seated in
a chair. could continue seeing her clearly
when the chair was empty. This must
have been an economical way of hiring
a subject by the hour and would be an
talent in these days Of highly
feed models. The ghastly case described
by Sir Walter Scott Of the man who
that he was dying, and knew
equally well that there was nothing
whatever the matter with him, is per-
haps too familiar to need more than
passing mention. The black cat that
this luckless man saw was. to use his
own words, mo household cat, but O
bubble Of the elements which has no
existence. This animal was as COM
plex in form as the seer's metaphor, for
It would turn suddenly into a court
usher, and the usher in his turn would
become Q skeleton. This man showed no
of insanity and was fully
aware Of the unreality Of what he saw.
which must greatly have added to the
persistent misery Of his condition.
An old gentleman described by the
late Dr.. Elan had a power Of conjuring
up. often without voluntary effort, two
Or moro charming dancing girls, and the
Of these nymphs continued until
sleep came to the rescue. The old fellow
was Of q particularly pious and proper
urn Of mind, 20 that their gratuitous
ballet was presumably wasted ON him.
Of Berlin. a very level headed
was troubled for two months
the vision Of q corpse. The hallu-
lasted as q rule exactly eight
minutes, and the body was apparently
steady at q uniform distance Of
about ten feet from the observer.
This trouble supervened suddenly
q violent quarrel In which Nicolai
had been engaged. Ultimately the
corpse and all the poor mans other de-
lusions were driven back to their own
sphere by the prosaic attacks Of leeches
on the temples. This treatment was
also most effective in dispelling the Vi
sions Of q certain clergyman in Hamp-
late in the last century. He habit
ually engaged In personal encounters
with the devil, until the leeches drove
the foul fend out Of his visual field.
Dr.. Bostock. the Psychologist, Jaw the
heads Of his friends Sin relief, like
Curiously enough, he
could never conjure up their bodies.
The great Napoleon was, as ia gen.
orally known. invariably attended by a
star. This story was implicitly believed
at the time. and it is said to have been
drst related by General Rapp. who. ON
visiting the 4nonarch's tent at night,
found Bonaparte excitedly pointing to
a corner Of the tent, crying: do you
see that-my star? II is aiming there
before youi" At the period Of the ref
ormation wrestling with the evil one
in propria persona was by no means an
uncommon exercise. Luther several
times indulged in these combats. MIR.
Lecky tells NJ Of the young monk who
up to SITS. Pachonius and
palGmon in the desert and told them
sxcitedly Of the beautiful woman who
had tempted him in his cell and. 'hav-
ing worked her purpose" had vanished
miraculously in the air, leaving him
half dead upon the ground. The story
goes on to say that the young monk,
with q wild shrek, broke away from