All things, in Red Indian belief, have somewhere their ideal counterpart or “Father.” Thus a donkey, when first…
- Date of account
- Written 1691; later edited edition
- Source
- The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies
- Reference
- The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies · selected passage 12
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English/Scots historical text
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
All things, in Red Indian belief, have somewhere their ideal counterpart or “Father.” Thus a donkey, when first seen, was regarded as “the Father” or archetype “of Rabbits.” Now the second-sighted behold the “Double-man,” “Doppel-ganger,” “Astral Body,” “Wraith,” or what you will, of a living person, and that is merely…
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 onlyAll things, in Red Indian belief, have somewhere their ideal counterpart or “Father.” Thus a donkey, when first seen, was regarded as “the Father” or archetype “of Rabbits.” Now the second-sighted behold the “Double-man,” “Doppel-ganger,” “Astral Body,” “Wraith,” or what you will, of a living person, and that is merely his counterpart in the abstruse world. The industry of the Psychical Society has collected much material—evidence, whatever its value, for the existence of the Double-man. We may call it a hallucination, which does not greatly increase our knowledge. From personal experience, and the experience of friends, I am constrained to believe that we may think we see a person who is not really present to the view—who may be in the next room, or downstairs, or a hundred miles off. This experience has occurred to the sane, the unimaginative, the healthy, the free from superstition, and in circumstances by no means mystic—for example, when the person supposed to be seen was not dying, nor distressed, nor in any but the most normal condition.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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