Phantasmagoria

“ Phantasmagoria is the magic lantern illusion associated with making phantasms appear before an audience. The only contribution to the art-science is that it created an illusion of motion through the novel means of moving the projector instead of the slides or film. ”

“ I should, in fact, be a reasonable man laboring under a hallucination. Some unknown disturbance must have been excited in my brain, one of those disturbances which physiologists of the present day try to note and to fix precisely, and that disturbance must have caused a profound gulf in my mind and in the order and logic of my ideas. Similar phenomena occur in dreams, and lead us through the most unlikely phantasmagoria, without causing us any surprise, because our verifying apparatus and our sense of control have gone to sleep, while our imaginative faculty wakes and works. ”

“ He proceeds to explain Phantasy or the Phantastic department of the soul, with the phantasms that belong to it. It is not sensible perception, nor belief, nor opinion, nor knowledge, nor cogitation. Our dreams, though affections of the sentient soul, are really phantasms in our sleep, when there is no visual sensation; even when awake, we have a phantasm of the sun, as of a disk one foot in diameter, though we believe the sun to be larger than the earth.121 Many of the lower animals have sensible perception without any phantasy: even those among 475them that have phantasy have no opinion ”

“ It has been said that the phantasm (taibhs or tamhasg) was independent of all thought and volition on the part of those whom it represented, as well as on [130] the part of the seer himself. At the same time, it was part of the creed that if the person whose double was seen was spoken to and told to cease his persecutions, the annoyance came to an end. The person spoken to, being utterly unconscious that his phantasm was wandering about and annoying any one, got very angry, but somehow the spectre ceased to appear. ”

“ Like the generality of people who are psychic and who have never had an experience of the superphysical, my conception of a phantasm was a "thing" in white that made ridiculous groanings and still more ridiculous clankings of chains. But here was something different, something that looked—save, perhaps, for the excessive pallor of its cheeks—just like an ordinary man. I knew it was not a man, partly on account of its extraordinary performance—no man, even if running at full speed, could keep up with us like that ”

“ A phantasm produces an effect on us totally unlike any that can be produced by physical agency—at least such is my experience—hence, for those who have never come in contact with the unknown to pronounce any verdict on it, is to my mind both futile and absurd. Of one thing, at least, I am sure, namely, that banshees are no more thought materialisations than they are cats—neither are they in any way traceable to telepathy or suggestion; they are entirely due to objective spirit forms. ”

“ To move a limb was impossible, to resist a wild dream. Yet no sooner had he gathered a clear idea of the danger threatening him than, calm again and confident, he waited events.
Swift and silent, Fantômas stepped over the crossbar of the window, sprang down into the room, and to Fandor’s side where he lay stretched helpless on the floor. In a turn of the hand he made fast the knots of his lasso, gagged the young man, then slackened the ligature that was almost strangling him, and this done, fell to taunting his victim with odious mockery. ”

“ There was once a philosopher called Plato, my dear. He poisoned Man's soul."
Flesh and spirit, Fanny must have been very tired. Her voice fluttered on like a ragged flag.
"But listen, listen!" I entreated her. "I haven't blamed you for that, Fanny. I swear it. I mean, you can't help not loving. I know that. But perhaps if only we had—— It's a dreadful thing to think of him sitting there alone—the vestry—and then looking up 'with a smile.' Oh, Fanny, with a smile! I dare hardly go into his mind—and the verger looking in. I think of him all day." ”

“ If it is a mirage, it is more beautiful than any that ever bewildered the vision of enchanted traveller. If it is an ignis fatuus, it is more potent than any ever raised by the spell of the sorcerer. But whether phantasm, mirage, ignis fatuus, or sober but grand reality, will assuredly be found out by science before another half century. ”

“ However, this evening Phanis doesn't see them.
He's in such a state that he remembers a thousand and one things. They come to mind all at the same time: the games he played, the courses he had last year, a fruit he cut and ate when he was little; a nest he'd found... Everything coming and going in his head, like ants in a nest. His head is buzzing.
His eyelids are burning and swollen. He really wants to sleep.
At last sleep came. This time it was deeper. Phanis will have slept for at least five or six hours. He felt in his sleep that he was cold, but he couldn't get up. ”

“ A prisoner in his lantern, still gagged, still tied hand and foot, Fandor seemed the victim of an atrocious nightmare. Scarce had the men entered the room before Fandor realized the full horror of his situation, guessed the whole secret of the villainous design. The men were police officers, they were shouting: “Jérôme Fandor, hands up! or you are a dead man.”
Then they began to search the garret, to turn everything upside down, to hunt about, to hunt for him! The young man felt a cold sweat bead his temples. What had been in Fantômas’ mind? He knew it only too well. ”

“ For as the smell of Assa-fetida, or Musk, so of bad something of bad, of good something of good, is derived upon them that are nigh, and sometimes continues a long time. Now then if the foresaid Passions have so great a power in the Phantasie, they have certainly a greater power in the reason, in as much as the reason is more excellent then the Phantasie; and lastly, they have much greater power in the mind; for this, when it is fixt upon God for any good with its whole intention, doth oftentimes affect anothers body as well as its own with some divine gift. ”

“ To tell the truth, he is a little torn and tattered; he lacks a feather in his tail; he has lost it in battle—unless it was through some bad fairy of the village. Fanchon has her suspicions he is a naughty bird. But she is a girl, and she does not mind her jack-sparrow being a trifle headstrong, if only he has a kind heart. She pets him and calls him pretty names. Suddenly he begins to grow bigger; his body gets longer; his wings turn into two arms; he is a boy, and Fanchon knows who he is—Antoine, the gardener’s little lad, who asks her:
“Shall we go and play together, shall we, Fanchon?” ”

“ We were all busily engaged in discussing our programme for the day when the phantasm appeared, and had, certainly, not been thinking of Miss D.
I do not think, then, that Phantasms of the Living are in any way attributable to telepathy, but that, like all other phantasms, they are purely superphysical. I have often been to haunted houses where the nature of the haunting was entirely unknown to me, and witnessed the same phenomena that I have subsequently learned have been experienced by countless other people. ”

“ It was the look, at once angry and regretful, that appeared on the girl’s face every time she remembered Jérôme Fandor; whenever she thought of the journalist, a sense of disquiet and perplexity filled her mind. Was she still in love with him? could it be that she still felt a mysterious passion for the man who was the author—at least so the unhappy girl was convinced—of all her misfortunes, the source of the fatal events that had cast a gloom over all her youth? Was it really possible that so amiable a young man was the accomplice of Fantômas, if not Fantômas himself? ”

“ Verse 37 states: “They supposed they had seen a spirit;” and on this verse Greenfield puts in the margin the word phantasma instead of pneuma, and marks it as a reading adopted by Griesbach. They supposed they had seen a phantom, apparition, specter. This exactly corresponds with their action when on another occasion Christ came to them walking on the sea, Matt. 14:26; Mark 6:49, and they were affrighted and cried out, supposing it was a spirit, where the Greek uses phantom in both instances. The Bible nowhere countenances the idea that phantoms or specters have any real existence ”

“ A phantasm, in my opinion, is a phenomena that cannot be explained by any physical laws. It is an objective—something, that can materialise and dematerialise at will, that can sometimes emit sounds, sometimes move material objects, and sometimes (though rarely) commit acts of physical violence on material objects. It can produce various sensations on living material bodies, whilst it is, in itself, though sometimes sensible and rational, as far as we know, always [p.144] insensible to physical action. ”

“ The phantasm is, after all, only the image of the spirit or soul; it is not actually the spirit or soul itself, any more than the man we see walking about Regent Street in a silk hat and frock-coat is actually the man himself; the latter is an abstract quantity, compounded of spirit, soul, and intelligence—what we see is merely an outward concrete form, whereby we are able to identify that abstract quantity. So it is with the superphysical ego. ”

“ She cannot die; The fabled Phœnix of the ancients was but an emblem, like every other myth; and, if the painting of Cupid burning a butterfly over a flame was the image of love tormenting the soul, the Phœnix rising from her ashes was surely a figure of the constant resurrection of Hope. Ay, from her very ashes does she rise to brighter and still brighter existence, till, soaring over the cold Lethe of the grave, she spreads her wings afar to the Elysian fields beyond! ”

“ What we cannot take with us we can build. As for the knowledge I mentioned, it may not be attained in your lifetime nor in mine. But the racial memory of the Fenachrone is long, as you know; and even if the necessary problems are not solved until our descendants are sufficiently numerous to populate an entire planet, yet will those descendants wreak the vengeance of the Fenachrone upon the races of that hated one, the Overlord, before they go on with the Conquest of the Universe. ”

“ We must accordingly admit that we believe sometimes on the supernatural, or on miracles.
"From this proved thesis you can deduce the corollaries for yourself if you possess the faculty of drawing inferences."
Phantasms which Are Real.—The teacher asked: "Can one see a phantasm?"
"What is a phantasm?"
"There are in optics real images which can be caught on a screen. An image reflected in a flat mirror cannot be caught upon a screen, and is therefore a phantasm. Can you see your image in a flat mirror?" ”

“ With French finesse he hits his mark 72 by expressly avoiding it. “What think you I mean by my disobliging rat? A monk? No, but a Mahometan devotee; I take it for granted that a monk is always ready with his help to the needful!”
The fable entitled “Death and the Dying,” is much admired for its union of pathos with wit. “The Two Doves,” is another of La Fontaine’s more tender inspirations. “The Mogul’s Dream” is a somewhat ambitious flight of the fabulist’s muse. On the whole, however, the masterpiece among the fables of La Fontaine is that of “The Animals Sick of the Plague.” ”

“ It is found in all things having life and as the occult philosophy teaches that life is in all things—in every atom—the apparent lifelessness of some things being only a lesser degree of manifestation, we may understand their teachings that prana is everywhere, in everything. Prana must not be confounded with the Ego—that bit of Divine Spirit in every soul, around which clusters matter and energy. Prana is merely a form of energy used by the Ego in its material manifestation. ”

“ Possibly had the young lady been alone, and not actively engaged, she might have had a more definite view of the phantasm of her absent friend, for experience has shown that solitude and quiet are favoring conditions for the perception of telepathic apparitions. In nearly every instance reported to the Society for Psychical Research the percipient of the phantasm is alone and in a more or less passive, quiescent frame of mind. ”

“ They are said to be able to cause apparitions of themselves in places where their bodies are not, and not only to appear, but to communicate intelligently with those whom they thus visit, and themselves to perceive what is going on where their phantasm appears. This phantasmal appearance has been called by Theosophists the projection of the "astral form." The evidence before the Committee includes several cases of such alleged appearances of two Mahatmas, Koot Hoomi and Morya. ”

“ But, when he examined the question more deeply, Fandor realized the fact that Fantômas’ crimes invariably had a double object—to get rid of an obnoxious adversary and at the same time to throw suspicions on the dead man that went to prove by their very nature the innocence of some accomplice of Fantômas or of Fantômas himself. Thus he pondered, all the while carrying on with the utmost awkwardness his duties as a waiter, under the wary and ever watchful eye of the landlord of The Orange Blossom. ”

“ Then on her dazed senses there supervenes—so she swore—the consciousness that some object is moving in the room—moving apparently of its own accord—moving in direct opposition to all the laws of nature as she knows them. She imagines that she perceives a phantasm—a strange something—globular-white—looking, as she says, "like a good-sized ball of cotton"—rise directly from the floor before her, ascending slowly upward, as if driven aloft by some invisible force. ”

“ It is that fact which makes our hunt for the villain ceaselessly difficult, often dangerous!... Fantômas is always someone, sometimes two persons, never himself!"
Juve, once started on this subject, could go on for ever, and Fandor did not try to stop him: when the course of conversation led them to talk of Fantômas the two men were as though hypnotised by this mysterious creature, so well named, for he was really "Fantômatic," a spectral entity: the two friends could not turn their minds to any other subject. They discussed Fantômas up and down, in and out, and round about!... ”