The Making of Religion

image of the thief was, according to their account, reflected in the water, and being perceived by the priest, he named the individual, or the parties.¹ Here the statement about the "spirit" is a mere primitive original: "savage" philosophical explanation. But the fact that hallucinatory pictures can really be seen by a fair percentage of educated Europeans, in water, glass balls, and so forth, is now confirmed by frequent experiment, and accepted by opponents, "non-mystical writers," like Dr. Parish of Munich.² I shall bring evidence to suggest that the visions may correctly reflect, as it were, persons and places absolutely unknown to the gazer, and that they may even reveal details unknown to everyone present. Such results among primitive people original: "savages", or among the superstitious, would be, and are, explained by the theory of "spirits." Modern science has still to find an explanation consistent with recognized laws of nature, but "spirits" we shall not invoke.

In the same way I mean to examine all or most of the "so-called mystical phenomena of primitive original: "savage" life." I then compare them with the better-documented modern examples. To return to the question of evidence, I confess that I do not see how the opposing anthropologist, psychologist, or popular agnostic is to evade the following dilemma: To the anthropologist we say, "The evidence we present is your own evidence, that of books of travel in all lands and countries. If you may argue from it, so may we. Some of it is evidence of unusual facts, more of it is evidence of singular beliefs, which we think are not necessarily without foundation. As raising a presumption in favor of that opinion, we cite examples in which primitive original: "savage" observations of abnormal and once rejected facts,

¹ Ellis, Polynesian Researches, ii. p. 240.
² Hallucinations and Illusions. English edition, pp. 63-70, 297.