The Making of Religion

ut recently emerged from that limbo of the unrecognised in which Psychical Research is pining. The British Association used to reject anthropological papers as ‘vain dream

ondoyant et divers, is the subject alike of anthropology and of psychical research. Man (especially savage man) cannot be secluded from disturbing influences, and watched, like the materials of a chemical experiment in a laboratory. Nor can man be caught in a ‘primitive’ state: his intellectual beginnings lie very far behind the stag

darkly muttered of serpent worship, phallus worship, Arkite doctrines, and the Ten Lost Tribes that kept turning up in the most unexpected places. Anthropologists were said to gloat over dirty rites of dirty savages, and to seek reason where there was none. The exiled, the outcast, the pariah of Science, is, indeed, apt

ns of the doctrine of Mr. Darwin. Modern writers on the theme had been anticipated by the less systematic students of the eighteenth century — Goguet, de Brosses, Millar, Fontenelle, Lafitau, Boulanger, or even Hume and Voltaire. As pioneers these writers answer to the early mesmerists and magnetists, Puységur,

hat suits your case. Suppose, as regards our present theme, your theory is that savages possess broken lights of the belief in a Supreme Being. You can find evidence for that. Or suppose you want to show that they have no religious ideas at all; you can find evidence for that also. Your testimony is often derived from observers ignorant of the language of th

accounts to certify each point in each locality.’ Mr. Tylor then adduces ‘the test of recurrence,’ of undesigned coincidence in testimony, as Millar had already argued in the last century.2 If a mediaeval Mahommedan in Tartary, a Jesuit in Brazil, a Wesleyan in Fiji, one may add a police

re obscure, we can often detect them by analysis

orn deaf and dumb] is that the religious ideas of civilised men are not innate’ (who says they are?), and this implication Mr. Spencer supports by ‘proofs that among various savages religious ideas do not exist.’ ‘Sir John Lubbock has given many of these.’ But it would be well to advise the reader to consult Roskoff’s confutation of Sir John Lubbock, and Mr. Tylor’s masterly statement.5 Mr. Spencer cited Sir Samuel Baker for savages without even ‘a ray of superstition’ or a trace of worship. Mr. Tylor, twelve years before Mr. Spencer wrote, had demolished Sir Samuel Baker’s assertion,6 as regards many tribes, and so shaken it as regards the Latukas, q

if instantiae contradictoriae are ignored by them, or left vague; if these things are done in the green tree, we ma

rvations to certain anthropologists, the censures of Mr. Max Müller are justified. It is mainly for this reason that the

ssociation. This is ungenerous, and unfortunate, as the records of anthropology are rich in unexamined materials of psychical research. I am unacquainted with any work devoted by an anthropologist of renown to the hypnotic and kindred practices of the lower races, except Herr Bastian’s very meagre tract, ‘über psychische Beobachtungen bei Naturv?lkern.’7 We possess, none the less, a mass of scattered informati

Mr. Huxley, Mr. Herbert Spencer, and their followers and popularisers,

shall show. Next, if the supernormal phenomena (clairvoyance, thought-transference, phantasms of the dead, phantasms of the dying, and others) be real matters of experience, the inferences drawn from them by early savage philosophy may be, in some degree, erroneous. But the inferences drawn by materialists who reject the supernormal phenomena will also, perhaps, be, let us say, incomplete. Religion will have been, in part, developed out of facts, perhaps incon

to examine, among other things, the evidence for the actual existence of those alleged un

nto a smooth deep (crystal-gazing) has been studied, I think, by no anthropologist. The veracity of ‘messages’ uttered by savage seers when (as they suppose) ‘possessed’ or ‘inspired’ has not been criticised, and probably cannot be, for lack of detailed information. The ‘physical phenomena’ which answer among savages to th

vival’ of that belief in later culture. He does not ask ‘Are the phenomena real?’ he is concerned only with the savage philosophy of the phenomena and with its relics in modern spiritism and religion. My purpose is to do, by way only of ébauche, what neither anthropology nor psychical research nor psychology has d

ument, the belief in the existence of an Intelligence, or Intelligences not human, and not dependent on a material mechanism of brain and nerves, which may, or may not, powerfully control men’s fortunes and the nature of things. We also mean the additional belief that there is, in man, an element so

e proved to arise in an unanalysable sensus numinis, or even in ‘a perception of the Infinite’ (Max Müller), religion would have a divine, or at least a necessary source. To the Theist, what is inevitable cannot

at nothing actual corresponds to its hypothesis — is very easily drawn. The inference is not, perhaps, logical, for all our science itself is the result of progressive refinements upon hypotheses originally erroneous, fashioned to explain facts misconceived. Yet our science is true, within its

h was contained in the primitive conception — the truth, namely, that the power which manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently conditioned form of the power which manifests itself beyond consciousness.’ In fact, we find Mr. Spencer, like Faust as described by Marguerite, saying much the same thing as the priests, but not q

one law, o

ar-off di

e whole cre

gin of human civilisation, perhaps even of human existence.’9 So far we abound in Mr. Tylor’s sense. ‘As a minimum definition of religion’ he gives ‘the belief in spiritual beings,’ which appears ‘among all low races with whom we have attained to thoroughly intimate relations.’ The existence of this belief at present does not prove that no races were ever, at any time, destitute of all belief. But it prevents us from positing t

ontrolling deities and subordinate spirits.’ In Mr. Tylor’s opinion, as in Mr. Huxley’s, Animism, in its lower (and earlier) forms, has scarcely any connection with ethics. Its ‘spirits’ do not ‘make for righteousness.’ This is a side issue to be examined later, but we may provisionally observe, in

licitly and consciously held, that all things whatsoever are animated and are personalities.10 Judging from the behaviour of little children, and from the myths of savages, early man may have half-consciously extended his own sense of personal and potent and animated existence to the whole of nature as known to him. Not only animals, but vegetables and inorganic objects, may have been looked on by h

arose in the earliest traceable speculati

ween a living body and a dead one; what cause

an shapes which appear

d the dead. But ‘while any one might be able to communicate with the ghosts, during sleep, it was only the wizards who were able to do so in waking hours.’ A wizard, in fact, is a person susceptible (or feigning to be susceptible) when awake to hallucinatory perceptions of phantasms of the dead. ‘Among th

50). This could only be proved by giving examples of such highly deficient languages, which Mr. Spencer does not do.13 In many savage speculations there occur ideas as subtly metaphysical as thos

llucinations (ghosts seen by a man when awake) and the common hallucinations of slumber

says the same of some negroes, and Mr. Spencer illustrates from the confusion of mind in dreamy children. They, we know, are much more addicted to somnambulism than grown-up people. I am unaware that spon

sed later (chap. v.), was introduced to a crystal just because she had previously

ed, in his early speculations about the life and the soul. He included in his materials the muc

possesses a ‘phantom’ (which appears to other people in their visions and dreams). The savage philosopher would then ‘combine his information,’ like a celebrated writer on Chi

ble of leaving the body, mostly invisible and impalpable, ‘yet also manifesting physical power,’ existing

ven) it would not be a very difficult logical leap, perhaps, to conceive of souls, or spirits, that had never been human at all. It is, we may say, only le premier pas qui co?te, the step to the belief in a surviving separable soul. Nevertheless, when we remember that Mr. Tylor is theorising about savages in the dim background of human evolution, savages whom we know nothing of by experience, savages far behind Australians and

hall find, later, astonishing examples of savage abstract speculation, certainly not derived

fe, ‘that which makes the difference between a living body and a dead one.’15 This highly abstract conception must have been, however, the more difficult to early man, as, to him, all things, universally, are ‘animated.’16 Mr. Tylor illustrates thi

ticks. We may doubt, then, if primitive man came, in this way, by reasoning on souls, to suppose that all things, universally, were animated. But if he did think all things animated — a corpse, to

mated to his mind) and (2) with ‘those human shapes which appear in dreams and visions’? ‘The ancient savage philosophers probably reached the obvious inference that every man had two things belonging to him, a life and a

e conjecturally with fac

r shadow was not only identical with the more abstract conception of Life, but could also take on forms as real and full-bodied as, to him, are the hallucinations of dream or waking vision. H

nd on the causes of phantasms of the dead or living beheld in ‘dreams and visions.’ But our author by no means leaves out of sight the effects of alleged supernormal phenomena believed in by savages, with their parallels in modern civilis

belief in separable and surviving souls of men (and in things), which Mr. Spencer believes in, and Mr. Tylor calls ‘Animism’ — we must also note another difficulty. Mr. Tylor may seem to be taking it for granted that the earliest, remote, unknown thinkers on life

Tylor o

ve hallucination, is rather the rule than the exception among uncultured and intensely imaginative trib

ost-seer.’ Most such favoured persons whom I have known were steady, unimaginative, unexcitable people, with just one odd experience. Lord Tennyson

by meditation, fasting, narcotics, excitement, or disease.’ Now, we may still ‘meditate’ — and how far the result is ‘morbid’ is a matter for psychologists and pathologists to determine. Fasting we do not practise voluntarily, nor would we easily accept evidence from an Englishman as to the veracity of voluntary fasting visions, like those of Cotton Mather. The visions of disease we should set aside, as a rule, with t

ut we produce these, as a rule, by other methods than theirs, and such experiments are not made on a

Once more, their intervals of hunger, followed by gorges of food, and their lack of artificial light, combine to make savages more apt to see what is not there than are comfortable educated white men. But

we necessarily know nothing. If there be such experiences as clairvoyance, telepathy, and so on, these unknown ancestors of ours may (for all that we can tell) have been peculiarly open to them, and therefore peculiarly apt to believe in separable souls. In fact, when we write about these far-off founders of religion, we guess in the dark, or by the flickering light of analogy. The lower animals have faculties (as in their powe

it, can he suppose himself to know about the twilight ages, between the lower animal and the fully evolved man. What kind of creature was man when he first conceived the germs, or received the light, of Religion? All is guess-work here! We may just allude to Hegel’s theory that clairvoyance and hypnotic phenomena are produced in a kind of temporary atavism, or ‘thr

ax Dessoir, of Berlin, following, indeed, M. Taine, has arrived, as we saw, at somewhat similar conclusions. ‘This fully conscious life of the spirit,’ in which we moderns now live, ‘seems to rest upon a subst

n trunk of our psychical existence,’ far from constant hallucination. In that case (at least, according to Dr. Dessoir’s theory) their ps

ame. Tanner, an English boy, caught early by the Indians, was sceptical, but came to practise the same art, not unsuccessfully, himself.24 His reminiscences, which he dictated on his return to civilisation, were certainly not feigned in the interests of any theories. But the most telepathic human stocks, it may be said, ought, ceteris paribus, to have been the most successful in the struggle for existence. We may infer that the cetera were not p

ys, attribute superior psychical knowledge to neighbouring tribes on a yet lower level of culture than themselves. The Finn esteems the Lapp sorcerers above his own; the Lapp yields to the superior pretensions of the Samoyeds. There may be more ways than one of explaining

nce falsely so called’ if you please) that when he wrote his book, in 18

of savage philosophy. He saw very well that the end of the century was beholding the partial rehabilitation of beliefs which were scouted from 1660 to 1850. Seventy years ago, as Mr.

einstated in a far larger range of society, and under far better circumstances of learning and prosperity.’ This fact he ascribes generally to ‘a direct revival from the regions of savage philosophy and peasant folklore,’ a revival brought about

enborg. It is true, as has been shown, that Swedenborg attracted the attention of Kant. But modern interest has chiefly b

essor of Psychology in the U

sychical Research) some years ago b

he says, ‘should be discussed on their merits,’ and the investigation ‘would seem apt to throw light

culties of unknown scope; that these conceivably were more powerful and prevalent among our very remote ancestors who founded religion; that they may still exist in savage as in civilised races, and that th

‘that in men which makes them live,’ a phrase found among the natives of Nicaragua in 1528. The confessedly symbolical character of the phrase, ‘it is not precisely the heart, but that in them which makes them live,’ proves that to the speaker life was not ‘heart’ or ‘breath,’ but that these terms were known to be material word-counters for the conception of life.28 Whether the earliest thi

, or ‘personal life-phantom’ (wraith), on one side, and the Karen thah, ‘the responsible moral soul,’ on

igratory spirit is next used by savages to explain certain proceedings of the sorcerer, priest, or seer. His soul, or one of his souls is thought to go forth to distant places i

r events, to him unknown, and, through channels of sense, unknowable. The savage will explain this by saying that the seer’s soul, shadow, or spirit, wandered out of the body to the distant scene. This is, at present, an unverified theory. But still, for the sake of argument, suppose that the seer did honestly obtain this information in trance, lethargy, or hypnotic sleep, or any other condition. If so, the modern savage (or his more gifted ancestors) would have other grounds for his theory of the wandering soul than any ground presented by normal occurrences, ordinary dreams, shadows, and so forth. Again, in human n

his theory than normal experiences provide; and will even raise a presumption that reflection on mere ordinary experiences — death, shadow, trance — is not the sole origin of his theory. For a savage so acute as Mr. Tylor’s hypothetical early reasoner migh

y channels of sense, a thing in rerum natura?’ Because, if it is, we must obviously increase our list of the savage’s reasons f

r discounting possibilities of falsehood and collusion. He might then have examined modern narratives of similar performances among the civilised, which are abundant. It is obvious and undeniable that if the supernormal acquisition of knowledge in trance is a vera causa, a real process, however rare, Mr. Tylor’s theory needs

have come to his knowledge of sick persons who, longing to see absent friends, have fallen

ase to be facts because wrong interpretations have been put upon them by savages, by Jung–Stilling, or by anyone else. The real question is, Do such events occur among lower and higher races, beyond explanation by fraud and fortuitous coincidence? We gladly grant that the belief in Animism, when it takes the form of a theory of ‘wandering spirits,’ is probably untenable, as it is assuredly of savage origin. But we are not absolutely so sure that in this aspect the theory is no

ty attributed by savage philosophers to the wandering soul. But one may be permitted to quote the opinion of M. Charles Richet, Professor of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine in Paris. It is not cited because M. Richet is a professor of phy

favour of M. Richet’s idea may now be sought