Meantime Homer, and Theocritus in familiar passages, attest this belief in light attendant on the coming of the…
- Date of account
- Published 1894
- Source
- Cock Lane and Common-Sense
- Reference
- Cock Lane and Common-Sense · selected passage 55
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Meantime Homer, and Theocritus in familiar passages, attest this belief in light attendant on the coming of the divine, while the Norse Sagas, and the well-known tale of Sir Charles Lee's daughter and the ghost of her mother (1662), speak for the same belief in the pre-Christian north, and in the society of the Restora…
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyMeantime Homer, and Theocritus in familiar passages, attest this belief in light attendant on the coming of the divine, while the Norse Sagas, and the well-known tale of Sir Charles Lee's daughter and the ghost of her mother (1662), speak for the same belief in the pre-Christian north, and in the society of the Restoration. {67a} A light always comes among the Eskimo, when the tornak, or familiar spirit, visits the Angekok or sorcerer. Here, then, is harmony enough in the psychical beliefs of all time, as when we learn that lights were flashed by the spirits who beset the late Rev. Stainton Moses. {67b} Unluckily, while we have this cloud of witnesses to the belief in a spiritual light, we are still uncertain as to whether the seeing of such a light is a physical symptom of hallucination. This is the opinion of M. Lelut, as given in his Amulette de Pascal (p. 301): 'This globe of fire . . . is a common constituent of hallucinations of sight, and may be regarded at once as their most elementary form, and their highest degree of intensity'. M. Lelut knew the phenomenon among mystics whom he had observed in his practice as an 'alienist'.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis comes from historical psychical research. Methods, witness handling and standards of evidence differ from present-day research and should be assessed from the cited passage and edition.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThe passage can support a history of claims and recurring descriptions. It does not establish a paranormal mechanism, and competing psychological, social and physical explanations remain relevant.
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