Supernatural agency

“ The agency of supernatural beings is an easy answer to the question, and some such cause is usually assigned for their origin by the tradition of the country. Sometimes they are the work of fairies, sometimes of giants and magicians, and sometimes they are said to be mortals changed into stone by an offended deity for some sacrilegious act, or heroes petrified as a lasting testimony of their exploits. ”

“ There is some mysterious, miraculous, supernatural, invisible agency, called, I believe, the Holy Ghost, that enters and changes the heart of man, and this mysterious agency is like the wind, under the control, apparently, of no one, coming and going when and whither it listeth. It is this illogical and absurd view of regeneration that I have attacked. ”

“ Its frequency would destroy the nature of a miracle as an attestation of a divine commission, and involve an interference with the order of nature, which would destroy the sense of its regularity, the knowledge of which is so essential to our well being, as well as to the conception of a miracle. Moreover, the supernatural agency is not supposed to be due to the direct intervention of God, but to some imaginary virtue residing in man. ”

“ Thus it has been frequently urged that to enable us to be certain that an alleged miracle is really due to supernatural agency, a jury of savants ought to be impanelled, before whom the worker of the miracle should exhibit his miraculous operation. ”

“ Why put down a thing to supernatural agency before sufficient time has elapsed to investigate the matter properly? A [96] person is murdered, and the body discovered without the head, and because the head cannot be found at once, you say that the devil has run off with it. ”

“ But the further question arises, Is it necessary in order to constitute an event a miracle that it should be one which transcends the known or the unknown forces of material nature to have produced? It is clear that to constitute an event a miracle it must involve supernatural or superhuman agency of some kind; that is to say, it must be either supernatural in the mode of its production as an objective fact, or superhuman in its productive elements, by which I mean, that it must be preceded by an announcement that it is going to occur, which must be beyond the sphere of human knowledge. ”

“ The agency of spirits and abstract principles, is countenanced by some of the records of religion, and by philosophers and physicians in their reasonings about occult causes, sympathies, coincidencies, and destinies. It is urged in vain, that ghosts and supernatural effects are never seen, except by the weakest or most ignorant of mankind, in ages or states of society when the people might be made to believe any thing ”

“ Being supernatural, the real agency is not seen in either case, although the human mind is more satisfied by the presentation of an apparent cause in the one case, which seems to be absent in the other. In preferring the former type, we are not only influenced by a more dramatic narrative, but we select for belief the miracle from which we can unconsciously eliminate more of the miraculous elements, by tracing it to a visible natural cause which cannot be seen in the latter. ”

“ The introduction of an unknown [pg 043] force can only be accomplished by a being who, although he may be immanent in nature, is yet capable of controlling its material forces. Occurrences therefore which transcend the power of the known forces existing in the universe to accomplish, whether they are material or human, may for all practical purposes be viewed as supernatural; that is to say, they denote the presence and agency of a being who is possessed of power, intelligence, and volition. ”

“ As it is affirmed that other supernatural beings exist, as well as an assumed Personal God, by whose agency miracles are performed, it is impossible to argue with reason that such phenomena are at any time specially due to the intervention of the Deity. ”

“ No violation of any law of nature takes place in either the cure or the prophetic announcement taken separately, but the two, taken together, are the proof of superhuman agency. Dr. Mozley concludes that no physical hypothesis can be framed accounting for the superhuman knowledge and power involved in this class of miracles, supposing the miracles to stand as they are recorded in Scripture. ”

“ We have come to look upon many phenomena that were formerly ascribed to supernatural agencies—crystal gazing, second sight, hallucinations, double personality, possessions, ghosts, even mediumship—not as manifestations of supernatural powers, but as due to an abnormal condition of mind in the subject. ”

“ Yet, while I assure myself that the supernatural has been banished, in the evil company of devils, black plagues, and witches, from this sanitary century, a vision of Dare’s Gift, amid its clustering cedars under the shadowy arch of the sunset, rises before me, and my feeble scepticism surrenders to that invincible spirit of darkness. For once in my life—the ordinary life of a corporation lawyer in Washington—the impossible really happened. ”

“ Ancient supernaturalism assigned its occurrences to no cause adequate to produce them. Those who asserted its reality, referred it to the action of deities who possessed very limited power, or to occult powers in nature. Such occult powers we now know to have no existence, and the power attributed to the supposed deities was far too limited to be capable of producing the results in question. All reputed events, the alleged cause of which is unable to produce them, we are entitled to reject without further investigation. ”

“ In general, in modern fiction, man now makes his supernatural characters in his own image. Ghosts, angels, devils, witches, werewolves, are humanized, made like to man in appearance, passions, and powers. ”

“ It is surely the strangeness, the unknown nature, the anomalous character of the supernatural agents here employed, that makes them to operate so powerfully on our hopes, fears, curiosities, sympathies, and, in short, on all the feelings of our hearts. ”

“ Until a little more than a hundred years ago all persons affected in any of these unusual ways were supposed to be endowed with some sort of supernatural power, or to be under external and supernatural influence, either divine or satanic. ”

“ The best authorities of Spiritualism believe that the supernatural, occult demonstrations, as produced in their séances, are from demon agencies. The whole system of mythology grew out of what is to-day the work of mediums. ”

“ An extension of this thought sometimes even prohibits the hero from accepting a seat or a bed offered by way of hospitality on the part of the devil, or the sorceress, to whose dwelling his business may take him, or even to look at the fair temptress who may seek to entice him to eat. [20]
The meaning of the superstition is not easy to trace, but it should be remembered that in the lower stages of human civilization no distinction is drawn between supernatural or spiritual beings who have never been enclosed in human bodies, and the spirits of the dead. ”

“ If a man invested with his body produced such effects of himself, we should say with reason that they are supernatural operations, because they exceed the known ordinary and natural power of the living man; but if a man held commerce with a spirit, an angel, or a demon, whom by virtue of some compact, explicit or implicit, he commanded to perform certain things which would be above his natural powers, but not beyond the powers of the spirit whom he commanded, would the effect resulting from it be miraculous or supernatural? ”

“ And therefore those Men must needs be precipicious, and build upon a sandy foundation, that will ascribe corporeal effects unto Devils, and yet know not the extent of nature, for no Man can rationally assign a beginning for supernatural agents and actions, that does not certainly know where the power and operation of nature ends. ”

“ The last great display of the effects of the doctrines of demonology, of the belief of the agency of invisible, irresponsible beings, whether fallen angels or departed spirits, upon the actions of men and human affairs, is now to open before us. The final results of superstitions and fables and fancies, accumulating through the ages, are to be exhibited in a transaction, an actual demonstration in real life. They are to present an exemplification that will at once fully display their power, and deal their death-blow. ”

“ We notice in these scientific stories a widening of the sphere of supernatural fiction. It is extended to include more of the normal interests and activities of man than has formerly been the case. Here we notice a spirit similar to that of the leveling influence seen in the case of the ghosts, devils, witches, angels, and so forth, who have been made more human not only in appearance but in emotions and activities as well. Likewise these scientific elements have been elevated to the human. ”

“ In addition to the unholy powers possessed by the devil and given by him to his agents, the witches, warlocks and magicians, we see in Gothic fiction other aspects of dæmonology, such as that associated with animals and with inanimate objects. Supernaturalism in the horror novel is by no means confined to human beings, but extends to beasts as well. ”

“ Everywhere, from time to time, the proximity of the unseen world and the existence of the Supernatural were made manifest: while, here and there, examples of special miraculous interventions evidently stood forth to show that neither the Arm of the Most High was shortened nor the faith of the followers of our Blessed Lord stunted in its growth. ”

“ Miracles, spells, incantations, witchcrafts, in short all the facts that are incorrectly called supernatural, can only be possible and accounted for by the authority with which some other mind compels us to accept the effects of a mysterious law of optics which magnifies, or diminishes, or exalts creation, enables it to move within us independently of our will, distorts or embellishes it, snatches us up to heaven, or plunges us into hell—the two terms by which we express the excess of rapture or of pain. These phenomena are within us, not outside us. ”

“ Upon no point has there ever been greater unanimity of belief. Church and State have vied with each other for the suppression of the abominable crime. Every phenomenon of nature, every unwelcome occurrence of social life, as well as every natural disease, has been ascribed to magic and demons. ”

“ Accustomed to attribute almost every phenomenon of nature to the intervention of supernatural powers, to people every rock and tree with its familiar spirit, "to hear the menace of a god in the thunder, and see the beneficence of a deity in the rain," they have had little reason to question the truth of stories in which the occult and supernatural plays little greater part than it daily appears to in the course of their own lives. ”

“ Now the purport of this volume is to show by examples of supernatural intervention—examples many of which have been gathered from quite recent periods—that Almighty God, from time to time, in various ways and by different human instruments, still condescendingly reveals to man glimpses of the world unseen, and shows the existence of that life beyond the grave, in which the sceptic and materialist of the present restless age would have us disbelieve, and which they themselves scornfully reject. ”

“ Here is a genuine thrill that is new in fiction. The man gradually becomes visible, but only in death is his dreadful figure seen completely again. This modern method of transferring to science the idea of invisibility so prominent in connection with ghosts, showing the invisibility as the result of a chemical compound, not of supernatural intervention, affecting a living man not a spirit, makes the effect of supernaturalism more vivid even than in the case of ghosts. ”

“ The warrior has employed it to inspire his soldiers; the priest to exalt his followers; the minstrel to entrance his auditors.
In the introduction to her Columbia doctorial dissertation, The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction, [1] Dr. Dorothy Scarborough has discussed in a very engaging manner the inherent need of the supernatural in fiction. In real life as well it plays a highly important part. ”

“ Altogether, the vitality of superstition in the country is very much greater than is commonly suspected. It is now confined, as it were, to the inner life of the people: no one talks of such things openly, but only to their friends, and thus a stranger might remark on the total extinction of the belief in the supernatural. ”

“ Modern Spiritualism, with its seances, its mediumistic experiments, has inspired many novels and stories. The Psychical Research Society, with branches in various parts of the world and its earnest advocates and serious investigations, has collected suggestive stuff for many ghostly stories. The different sources for plot material and mechanics for awesome effect, added to these from which the terror novel drew its inspiration, have incalculably enriched the supernatural fiction and widened the limits far beyond the restrictions of the conventionalized Gothic. ”

“ As I have observed, the principle is found energizing wherever man exists. Although in one age it may be more active than in another, it is alike the inheritance of the civilized man and the savage. It has displayed itself in the creations of the poet and the writer of fiction; in the various forms of religious thought; in the production of ghost-stories and pictures of the under-world; in the creation of the various forms of demonology, witchcraft and magic; in the milder form of fairy-tales; in charms and incantations, and in efforts to pry into the future. ”

“ There is at the present a definite revival of interest in the supernatural appearing in the drama, in poetry and in fiction, evident to anyone who has carefully studied the recent publications and magazines. Within the last few years, especially in the last two years, an astonishing amount of ghostly material has appeared. Some of these stories are of the hoax variety, others are suggestive, allegorical or symbolic, while others frankly accept the forces beyond man’s mortal life and human dominion. ”