Hallucination in animals,

— One of our colleagues conveyed to the Society the following extract from a report read at the Academy of Medicine by Dr. H. Bouley [Inspector-General of the veterinary schools], on the symptoms of rabies in the dog.

“In the initial period of rabies and when the disease is fully declared, there is, in the intermissions, a kind of delirium in the dog, which may be called rabid delirium, of which Youatt [William Youatt (Youatt, William, 1776-1847) | The Online Books Page;] was the first to speak and to describe perfectly.

“This delirium is characterized by strange movements, which indicate that the sick animal sees objects and hears noises that exist only in what one has every right to call its imagination. Indeed, at one moment the animal remains motionless, attentive, as if on the lookout; then, suddenly, it lunges and bites at the air, as a healthy dog does when it wants to catch a fly in flight. At other times, furious and howling, it hurls itself against the wall, as if it had heard, on the other side, threatening noises.

“Reasoning by analogy, one is authorized to admit that these are signs of true hallucinations. However, anyone not forewarned would attach no importance to these symptoms, which are very fleeting, it being enough, for them to disappear, that the master’s voice be made to be heard. Then comes a moment of repose; the eyes close slowly, the head droops, the front paws seem to vanish beneath the body, and the animal is about to fall. But, suddenly, it rises up, and new phantoms come to besiege it; it looks around itself with a savage expression, snaps as if it wanted to seize an object within reach of its teeth, and rushes, at the end of the chain, to meet an enemy that exists only in its imagination.”

— This phenomenon, minutely observed by the author of the memoir, seems to indicate that at that moment the dog is tormented by the vision of something invisible to us. Is it a real vision or a fantastic creation of its imagination, in other words, a hallucination? If it is a hallucination, it is certainly not with the eyes of the body that it sees, for they are not real objects; if they are fluidic beings or Spirits, they likewise cause no impression on the sense of sight, and thus it is by a kind of spiritual vision that it perceives them. In one case as in the other, it would enjoy a faculty analogous, up to a certain point, to that possessed by man. Science had not yet ventured to grant an imagination to animals. Now, from imagination to a principle independent of matter the distance is not great, unless one admits that brute matter—wood, stone, etc.—can have an imagination.

— All the phenomena of vision are attributed by Science to an over-excited imagination. Nonetheless, children of tender age have sometimes been seen, who do not yet know how to speak, running after an invisible being, smiling at it, stretching out their arms to it, and wanting to grasp it. In comparison with rabies, does this fact not bear a great resemblance to that of the dog cited above? The child cannot yet say what it sees, but those who begin to speak say, positively, that they see beings invisible to those present. They have been seen describing deceased grandparents whom they had not known. One conceives of over-excitement in a person preoccupied by an idea, but that is surely not the case of a little child. The over-excited imagination may awaken a memory; fear, affection, enthusiasm may create fantastic images, that is possible; under the sway of certain beliefs, an exalted person will imagine seeing a being dear to him appear, the Virgin and the saints, that is still admissible; but how to explain, by these causes alone, the fact of a child of three or four years describing its grandmother, whom it never saw? It surely cannot be the product of a memory, nor of preoccupation, nor of any belief whatever.

— Let us say in passing, and as a corollary of what precedes, that seeing mediumship seems to be frequent, and even general, in little children. Our guardian angels would thus come to lead us, as it were by the hand, to the threshold of life, to make our entrance easier for us and to show us their connection with spiritual life, so that the transition from one to the other may not be too abrupt. As the child grows and can make use of its own forces, the guardian angel veils itself from its sight, to leave it to free will. It seems to say to it: “I came to accompany you to the ship that will carry you across the sea of the world; now, depart; fly with your own wings; but, from the height of heaven, I will watch over you; think of me, and upon your return I will be there to receive you.” Happy is he who, during the crossing, does not forget his guardian angel!

— Let us return to the principal subject, which led us to this digression. Once one admits an imagination in the dog, one could say that the disease of rabies over-excites it to the point of provoking hallucinations in it. But numerous examples tend to prove that the phenomenon of visions has occurred in certain animals, in the most normal state, especially in the dog and the horse; at least it is in these that it has been most observed. Reasoning by analogy, one may suppose that the same occurs with the elephant and with animals that, by their intelligence, come closest to man. It is certain that the dog dreams; many times, during sleep, they have been seen making movements that simulate running, whimpering or manifesting contentment. Its thought is, therefore, active, free, and independent of instinct properly so called. What does it do, what does it think, and what does it see in its dreams? That is what, unfortunately, it cannot tell us; but the fact is there.

— Until now we had scarcely concerned ourselves with the intelligent principle of animals and, still less, with its affinity with the human species, except from the exclusive point of view of the material organism. Today we seek to reconcile their state and their destiny with the justice of God; but in this regard only systems more or less logical have been made, not always in accordance with the facts. If the question has remained undecided for so long, it is that we lacked, as for many others, the elements necessary to understand it. Spiritism, which gives the key to so many phenomena that are misunderstood, badly observed, or overlooked, cannot fail to facilitate the solution of this grave problem, to which all the attention it deserves has not been given, because it is a break of continuity in the links that bind all beings, and in the harmonious whole of Creation. Why, then, did Spiritism not resolve the question immediately? It would be the same as asking why a professor of Physics does not teach his students, from the first lesson, the laws of electricity and of optics. He begins with the fundamental principles of the science, with those that must serve as the basis for understanding the other principles, reserving for later the explanation of the subsequent laws. So do the great Spirits who direct the Spiritist movement; in good logic they begin at the beginning and wait until we are sufficiently instructed in one point before broaching another. Now, what was to be the starting point of their teaching? The human soul. It falls to us to convince of its existence and of its immortality; to us it pertains to make known its true attributes and the destiny that, at the outset, had to be linked to it. In a word, we needed to understand our own soul before seeking to understand that of animals. Spiritism has already taught us enough about the soul and its faculties; daily it teaches us more and casts light on some new point. But how much still remains to be explored! As man advances in the knowledge of his spiritual state, his attention is awakened to all the questions that concern him, and that of animals is not among the least interesting; he grasps better the analogies and the differences; he seeks to explain what he sees; he draws conclusions; he tries out theories, successively contradicted or confirmed by new observations. It is thus that, by the efforts of his own intelligence, he little by little approaches the goal. In this, as in all things, the Spirits do not come to free us from the labor of research, because man must make use of his faculties; they help him, they direct him, which is already much, but they do not give him finished science. Once on the path of truth, the Spirits come to reveal it to him clearly, in order to silence the uncertainties and annihilate the false systems. But, while man waits, his Spirit has prepared itself to better understand and accept it; and when it shows itself, it does not surprise him; it was already at the bottom of his thought.

— See the course that Spiritism has followed. Did it come to take men by surprise unawares? No, certainly. Without speaking of the facts that have occurred in all epochs, it is in Nature, like electricity, and, from the point of view of the principle, it had been preparing its arrival for a century. Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, the theosophists, Charles Fourier, Jean Reynaud, and so many others, not forgetting Mesmer, who made known the fluidic force of Puységur, the first to observe somnambulism, all lifted a corner of the veil of spiritual life; all revolved around the true light and more or less approached it; all prepared the ways and predisposed the Spirits, so that Spiritism had, so to speak, only to complete what had been sketched out. This is why it won, almost instantaneously, so many sympathies. We do not speak of the other multiple causes that came to its aid, proving that certain ideas were no longer compatible with the level of human progress, and made foreseen the advent of a new order of things, because Humanity cannot remain stationary. The same occurs with all the great ideas that have changed the face of the world; none came to dazzle like a flash of lightning. Five centuries before Christ, had not Socrates and Plato already cast the seed of Christian ideas?

— Another motive had caused the solution relative to animals to be postponed. This question touches on prejudices long rooted, and which it would have been imprudent to shock head-on, which is why the Spirits did not do so. The question is presented today; it is stirred in various quarters, even outside Spiritism; the disincarnate take part in it, according to their personal ideas; these various theories are discussed, examined; an immensity of facts, like the one this article treats, and which formerly would have passed unnoticed, today call attention, by reason of the very preliminary studies that have been made. Without adopting this or that opinion, one becomes familiar with the idea of a point of contact between animality and Humanity; and, when the definitive solution comes, in whatever sense it may occur, it will have to rest on peremptory arguments that will leave no room for any doubt. If the idea is true, it will have been foreseen; if it is false, it is that something more logical will have been found to put in its place. Everything is linked, everything is chained together, everything is harmonized in Nature. Spiritism came to give a mother-idea, and one can see how fruitful this idea is. Before the light it casts on psychology, one would have had difficulty believing that so many considerations could arise on the subject of a rabid dog.

After Mr. Bouley’s report was read at the Society of Paris, a Spirit gave the following communication in this regard.

(Spiritist Society of Paris, June 30, 1865. – Medium: Mr. Desliens.)

Does vision exist in the dog and in some other animals, in which phenomena similar to those described by Mr. Bouley may occur? For me the question admits of no doubt. Yes; the dog and the horse see or sense Spirits. Have you never witnessed the repugnance that these animals sometimes manifest, when passing through a place where they were unaware that a human body had been buried? You will certainly say that their senses may be awakened by the particular odor of bodies in putrefaction; then why do they pass indifferently beside the buried carcass of another animal? Why is it said that the dog senses death beforehand? Have you never seen dogs howling beneath the windows of a person in agony, when that person was unknown to it? Do you not also see, apart from the excitement of rabies, various animals refusing to obey the master’s voice, recoiling in fright before an obstacle that seems to bar their passage, and becoming enraged? and then passing calmly through the same spot that inspired terror in them, as if the obstacle had disappeared? Animals have been seen saving their masters from an imminent danger, refusing to travel the road where the latter would have been able to perish. Facts of visions in animals are found in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, as well as in our days. Thus, there is no doubt that animals see Spirits. Moreover, to say that they have imagination, is that not to grant them a point of similarity with the human Spirit? and is instinct not, in them, rudimentary intelligence, appropriate to their needs, before it has passed through the modifying crucibles that are to transform it and give it new faculties? Man too has instincts, which make him act in an unconscious manner, in the interest of his self-preservation; but, as intelligence and free will develop in him, instinct weakens, to give place to reason, because that blind guide is less necessary to him.

Instinct, which is in all its vigor in the animal, perpetuating itself in man, where it is lost little by little, is certainly a trait of union between the two species. The subtlety of the senses in the animal, as in the savage and in primitive man, supplying in both the absence or insufficiency of the moral sense, is another point of contact. Finally, spiritual vision which, with all evidence, is common to them, although in very diverse degrees, also comes to diminish the distance that seems to raise between them an insurmountable barrier. Nevertheless, conclude nothing in an absolute manner, but observe the facts attentively, because only from that observation will the truth one day spring forth for you.

Mokí.

Observation. – This counsel is very wise, for, evidently, only on facts can a solid theory be established; apart from that there will be only opinions and systems. When verified, facts are arguments without rejoinder, whose consequences, sooner or later, will have to be accepted. It was the principle that served as the basis for the Spiritist Doctrine, and it is what leads us to say that Spiritism is a science of observation.