Second Sight in the Nineteenth Century: Prophecy, Imagination and Nationhood

264 Pages·2017·8.35 MB·English

by  Elsa Richardson (auth.)

Palgrave Studies in Literature,
Science and Medicine
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ElsaRichardson
Second Sight in the
Nineteenth Century
Prophecy, Imagination and Nationhood
ElsaRichardson
StrathclydeUniversity
Glasgow,UnitedKingdom
PalgraveStudiesinLiterature,ScienceandMedicine
ISBN978-1-137-51969-6 ISBN978-1-137-51970-2(eBook)
DOI10.1057/978-1-137-51970-2
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A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is the product of journeys north and south. It began when I
tookthepathtroddenbymanyoftheLowlandScotsfeaturedinthisbook
and moved to London in search of broader horizons. There I joined the
History Department of Queen Mary University of London (QMUL),
whereIstartedthisresearch,workedinabookshop,taughtbrightunder-
graduates, got lost on night buses and eventually completed a doctorate.
Thenlastyear,horizonssufficientlybroadened,Iretracedmystepsnorth-
wards to the calm of a wet Glasgow summer and to the quiet needed to
finish thisbook.
Along the way, my work has benefited from the generous input of
colleagues, from the patience of friends and from the support of family.
Special thanks to Rhodri Hayward and Thomas Dixon for granting my
membership to the Centre for the History of the Emotions at QMUL
where,asanEnglishliteraturestudentwithitchyfeetandinterdisciplinary
tendencies,itwasarelieftofindmyselfamongthesimilarlyafflicted.The
Centre was a hugely stimulating environment in which to undertake a
PhD and my research was greatly influenced by the astute, rigorous
scholarship pursued by its members. I owe a substantial intellectual debt
toRhodri,myprimarysupervisor,mentorandfriend,withoutwhomthis
projectwouldneverhavecomeintobeing.Ithasbeenapleasuretolearn
from such an original thinker, whose criticisms, multiple read-throughs
and countless acts of kindness have proved invaluable. To find my own
wildlydiverseinterestsnotonlymatchedbutbestedbymysupervisorwas
aremarkablestrokeofgoodluck.IamgratefulalsotoJohannaCohenfor
her clear-headed guidance; to Catherine Maxwell for her advice at a
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
formative stage; to Barbara Taylor for advocating for my work; to
Christine Ferguson and Roger Luckhurst for reading the manuscript in
itsnascentformandforofferingsoundadviceonhowtoimprove it;and
to TiffanyWatt-Smithforherfriendship andkeenscholarly insight.
Libraries and archives have, of course, played an essential role in the
successofthisresearch.Muchofthisbookwaswritteninthelibraryatthe
Wellcome Collection, a quiet space in the centre of London with well-
stocked shelves and well-informed librarians. Special thanks to Ross
MacFarlane for pointing me in the direction of useful material and for
indulging my interest in malevolent Highland fairies. I also spent a good
deal of time in Senate House Library, where a number of knowledgeable
archivists helped me to steer a path through the supernatural immensity
that is the Harry Price Collection. Further acknowledgements are due to
thepatientarchivistsattheUniversityofKentandtothecustodiansofthe
Pitt Rivers Museum who allowed me to access their vast storehouse of
curiosities. This research was made possible by the long-term financial
support of the Carnegie Trust and the Wellcome Trust, and by small
grants fromthe StirlingshireEducational Trust andQMUL.
Lastly, I am indebted to my wonderful friends for cooking me dinner,
keeping me sane and offering endless encouragement. Special thanks to
my old housemate Elaine Tierney for her editorial prowess and scholarly
enthusiasm; to Rosie Eveleigh for understanding how one does judge a
book by its cover; and to Laura Guy for seeing it through. My deepest
thanks are reserved for my parents, Eileen and Alistair Richardson, for
theirunwaveringsupport,kindnessandwit.Idedicatethisbooktothem.
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
2 Second Sightand theCreation of the Highlands 17
3 Mesmerism,Phrenologyand SupernaturalHistory 57
4 PrimitiveSpiritualism andOriginStories 103
5 PsychicalResearch, Folklore andRomance 151
6 Research inthe Field: Ada Goodrich Freer
andFiona Macleod 195
7 Conclusion 245
Index 255
vii
CHAPTER1
Introduction
On 23 August 1894, the Dundee Courier printed a short report that
detailed a tour being taken through the West Highlands and Islands by
several members of a London-based organisation called the Society for
Psychical Research (SPR). The purpose of their trip, we are told, con-
cerned ‘that peculiar faculty said to be possessed by many people, espe-
cially in the Highlands, and popularly known as “second sight”’.
Accompanied by a small white terrier, two of the organisation’s ‘lady
members’ were making their way through the small fishing villages and
farming communities of Tiree, Iona, Eriskay, Barra and Portree in search
of people in possession of this special ocular capacity.1 Writing in Cock
Lane and Common Sense (1894), Andrew Lang, a Scottish writer and
prominent member of the SPR, described the hallmarks of the phenom-
enonunder investigation:
In second sight the percipient beholds events occurring at a distance, sees
peoplewhomheneversawwiththebodilyeye,andwhoafterwardsarrivein
hisneighbourhood;orforeseeseventsapproachingbutstillremoteintime.
The chief peculiarity of second sight is, that the visions often, though not
always,areofsymbolicalcharacter.Ashroudisobservedaroundtheliving
man who is doomed; boding animals, mostly black dogs, vex the seer;
funerals are witnessed before they occur, and ‘corpse-candles’ (some sort
oflight)arewatchedflittingabovetheroadwherebyaburialprocessionisto
takeitsway.2
©TheAuthor(s)2017 1
E.Richardson,SecondSightintheNineteenthCentury,
PalgraveStudiesinLiterature,ScienceandMedicine,
DOI10.1057/978-1-137-51970-2_1
2 1 INTRODUCTION
Described in Gaelic asthe An-da-shealladh orthe ‘two sights’, thisintui-
tivevisionwassaidto thriveamongtheScottishHighlanders. Unlikethe
doctrinal revelations of the religious prophet or the nation-forming pro-
clamations of the oracle, the premonitions associated with second sight
trafficked in quotidian experience. To give an example, in one account
recordedbytheSPRanislandwomandelayspackingforatriptoEngland
becauseofavisioninwhicha‘messengercameonhorsebackwithaletter’
tellingofadeathinthefamily;twodayslater,justassheisconfessingthis
‘foolishness’toherhusband,theletterarrivesexactlyasforecast.3Arriving
unsought,suchpredictionsdetailedeverydayeventsinthelivesofpeople
living in remote communities: the death of a neighbour, the unexpected
arrival of a relative, the wrecking of a fishing boat or the success of a
harvest. From thelate seventeenthcentury onwards, thesemundane pro-
phecies began to attract the attention of scientists, antiquarians, travel
writers, artists, novelists, folklorists and eventually, psychical researchers.
This book is, in part, an examination of these varied enquiries and an
attempt to understandhow the oddportents ofa remotepeople cameto
occupya prominentpositionin the British imagination.
Second sight was an object of fascination for many English-speaking
observers, drawn north in search of symbolical visions and eerie prophe-
cies. Writing in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), the
lexicographerandessayistSamuelJohnsonavowedthathistravelnarrative
would really have ‘little claim to the praise of curiosity’ if it failed to
address the question of second sight among the Highlanders. Describing
itasan‘impressionmadeeitherontheeye,orbytheeyeuponthemind’,
Johnson finds that the premonitions associated with second sight feature
set narratives: such as, a man ‘on a journey far from home falls from his
horse’ and is seen ‘bleeding on the ground’ by a relative working miles
away from the accident, or a seer ‘driving home his cattle’ is surprised by
the sudden appearance of a spectral‘bridal ceremonyor a funeral proces-
sion’blockinghisway.4Thesevisionsare,thewriterexplains,thespectral
imprints ofdistantorfuture eventsseenas‘ifthey were present’,thatare
brought about by a ‘superadded’ power of sight.5 Having encountered
‘many tales of these airy shows’ and carefully weighed their evidentiary
value, Johnson departed from Scotland unconvinced but ‘willing to
believe’ in the possibility of supernatural foresight.6 The measured tone
of this conclusion, grounded in empirical observation and probabilistic
reasoning,istypicaloftheinvestigativeculturesexaminedbythisbook.In
hishistoryofghost-seeingfromtheReformationtothetwentiethcentury,