30. Relevancy update

What with the manner in which news and events have a habit of occurring somewhat continuously, I am occasionally confounded by an absence of serendipity, which would otherwise lend me an authoritative air of prescience and relevancy.

Days after posting about Britain's 19th century dominance of the opium trade, the newspapers were full of reports about Helmand province's soaring levels of production, quoting levels of production that would perhaps have inspired approval from EB9's statisticians, although they may have needed to reconsider their views of racial characteristics considering which peoples provide today's moral imbeciles.

With possibly the headline of the year (Pope urges crackdown on reported visions of Mary) The Times last week reported Benedict XVI's admirably robust stance on the verification of visitations by the BVM.

The pontiff believes bishops should resist being swayed by the emotional reaction of believers and be guided instead by strictly applied "scientific, psychological and theological criteria".

A rational approach which would have warmed the heart of Andrew Lang, M.A., and which promises to bring the church of Rome to the leading edge of critical 19th century thinking.

Now we have boffins at Harvard telling us that evolution has hard-wired superstition into our brains. Well, you lofty egg-heads, we're one step ahead of you at According to the Ninth : your news is no news to us. Have you never heard of Mysterizingness? Away with your effete heresies!

At this rate I should hardly be surprized if, in a week or two, I open the papers to read that someone has drilled their way into the Gold Melting House of the Royal Mint. Please remember, Accordingianists, you read it here first.

24. Mysterizingness in the Limbo of Effete Heresies

"PHRENOLOGY. The name was given by Forster in 1815 to the empirical system of psychology formulated by Gall and developed by his followers, especially by Spurzheim and Combe. At first it was named "cranioscopy," "craniology," "physiognomy," or "zoonomy," but Forster's name was early adopted by Spurtzheim, and became that whereby the system is now known. The principles upon which it is based are four : (1) the brain is the organ of the mind ; (2) the mental powers of man can be analysed into a definite number of independent faculties ; (3) these faculties are innate, and each has its seat in a definite region of the brain ; (4) the size of each of these regions is the measure of the power of manifesting the faculty associated with it. While phrenology is thus, on the one hand, a system of mental philosophy, it has a second and more popular aspect as a method whereby the disposition and character of the individual may be ascertained. These two sides of the subject are distinct from each other, for, while it can only serve as a reliable guide for reading character on the assumption of its truth as a philosophic system, yet the possibility of its practical application does not necessarily follow from the establishment of the truth of its theoretic side."

The author of this essay, A. Macalister, M. D., Professor of Anatomy, University of Cambridge, is necessarily careful in his introduction of this subject. It is worth considering that while today we can easily dismiss Phrenology as an amusing, faith-based pseudo-science, in the 19th Century, however flawed the scientific method , the products of the subject were worth considering, in the absence of more rigorously achieved data.

Macalister gives us the history of the subject - from the work of early Greeks and Egyptians, through Albertus Magnus to Theodore Gall, and the heyday of Phrenology as a respected scientific philosophy in the early 19th Century.

"The popularity of phrenology has waned, and few of the phrenological societies now survive ; the cultivation of the system is confined to a few enthusiasts such as will be found attached to any cause, and some professional teachers who follow phrenology as a vocation. Like many similar systems, it has a much larger following in America than in Europe. Based, like many other artificial philosophies, on an admixture of assumption and truth, certain parts will survive and become incorporated into scientific psychology, while the rest will in due course come to be relegated to the limbo of effete heresies.

The faculties and their Localities.- The system of Gall was constructed by a method of pure empiricism, and his so-called organs were for the most part identified on slender grounds. Having selected the place of a faculty, he examined the heads of his friends and casts of persons with that peculiarity in common, and in them he sought for the distinctive feature of their characteristic trait. Some of his earlier studies were made among low associates, in jails, and in lunatic asylums, and some of the qualities located by him were such as tend to become perverted to crime. These he named after their excessive manifestations, mapping out organs of murder, theft, &c. ; but as this cast some discredit on the system the names were changed by Spurzheim, who claimed as his the moral and religious considerations associated with it."

Doctor Macalister proceeds admirably by cataloguing all thirty five propensities, sentiments and faculties of the system of Spurzheim and Combe. A selection follow :

Propensities
[...](3) Concentrativeness, below the obelion and over the lambda. This is a region of uncertain function, unnoticed by Gall, but described as Inhabitiveness by Spurzheim, because he found it large in cats and in a clergyman fond of his home. [...]
(4) Adhesiveness (Amitie), over the lateral convoluted area of the lambdoidal suture. This region was prominent in a lady introduced to Gall as a model of friendship, and is said by him to be the region where persons close to each other put their heads together.
(5) Combativeness (Instinct de la defense), above the asterion ; it was found by Gall by examining the heads of the most quarrelsome of his low companions whom he had beforehand stimulated by alcohol. It was verified by comparing this region with the same part of the head of a quarrelsome young lady."

Now that is what I call a scientific study : administering alcohol to low companions, measuring their heads, then measuring that of a quarrelsome young lady for confirmation.

"(6) Destructiveness (Instinct carnassier), above the ear meatus. This is the widest part of the skulls of carnivorous animals, and was found large in the head of a student so fond of torturing animals that he became a surgeon, also large in the head of an apothecary who became an executioner.
[...](8) Acquisitiveness (Sentiment de la propriete), on the upper edge of the front half of the squamous suture. This part of the head Gall noticed to be prominent in the pickpockets of his acquaintance.
(9) Constructiveness (Sens de mechanique), on the stephanion ; detected by its prominence on the heads of persons of mechanical genius. It was found large on the head of a milliner of uncommon taste and on a skull reputed to be that of Raphael. [...]

Lower Sentiments
(10) Self-esteem (Orgueil, Fierte), at and immediately over the obelion ; found by Gall in a beggar who excused his poverty on account of his pride. This was confirmed by the observation that proud persons held their heads backwards in the line of the organ. [...]

Superior Sentiments
[...](14) Veneration (Sentiment religieux), median at the bregma. Gall noted when visiting churches that those who prayed with the greatest fervour were prominent in this region, and it was also prominent in a pious brother."

I wonder if there's any possibility that Gall made up these observations, off the top of his head, as it were.

"(15) Conscientiousness, unknown to Gall ; recognized by Spurzheim usually from its deficiency, and placed between the last and the parietal eminence.
[...](18) Wonder, said to be large in vision-seers and many psychic researchers. A second similar organ, placed between this and the next is called Mysterizingness by Forster, and is said to preside over belief in ghosts and the supernatural.
(19) Ideality (Poesie), noted by Gallfrom its prominence in the busts of poets ; said to be the part touched by the hand when composing poetry.
(20) Wit (Esprit caustique), the frontal eminence, the organ of the sense of the ludicrous, prominent in Rabelais and Swift. [...]

Perceptive Faculties
(22) Individuality, over the frontal sinus in the middle line ; the capacity of recognizing external objects and forming ideas therefrom ; said to have been large in Michelangelo, and small in the Scots.
(23) Form (Memoire des personnes), capacity for recognizing faces ; gives a wide interval between the eyes ; found by Gall in a squinting girl with a good memory for faces. [...]
(28) Number, on the external angular process of the frontal bone, large in a calculating boy in Vienna.
(29) Order, internal to the last, first noted by Spurzheim in an orderly idiot. [...]

Reflective Faculties
(34) Comparison (Sagacite comparative), median, at the top of the bare region of the forehead, where a savant friend of Gall's, fond of analogies, had a promonent boss."

And finally

"(35) Causality (Esprit metaphysique), the eminence on each side of Comparison, noticed on the head of Fichte and on a bust of Kant ; the seat of the faculty of correlating causes and effects."

Which one cannot help but imagine to have been somewhat lacking on the bonces of Messrs Gall, Spurzheim, and company.

You can enjoy the rest of Doctor Macalisters slightly sarcastic presentation of this entertaining pseudo-science in the full PHRENOLOGY posting at the 1902 Encyclopedia website. The term 'mysterizingness' seems not to have achieved wider currency in the last few hundred years, returning only 22 hits at present from the Google. Accordingianists might see it as their duty to remedy this situation, perhaps by leaving snide comments on the web forums of modern-day phrenology enthusiasts. Eg : "Your propensity to mysterizingness will leave you stranded in the limbo of effete heresies."

The Phrenology article in the current edition of Britannica is clearly a summary based on Doctor Macalister's 9th Edition article, which strikes a pleasing note of continuity across 130 years.

11. Abracadabra

ABRACADABRA, a meaningless word once supposed to have a magical efficacy as an antidote against agues and other fevers. Ridiculously minute directions for the proper use of the charm are given in the Praecepta de Medicina of Serenus Sammonicus. The paper on which the word was written had to be folded in the form of a cross, suspended from the neck by a strip of linen so as to rest on the pit of the stomach, worn in this way for nine days, and then, before sunrise, cast behind the wearer into a stream running to the east. The letters of the word were usually arranged to form a triangle in one or other of the following ways:-

ABRACADABRA
ABRACADABR
ABRACADAB
ABRACADA
ABRACAD
ABRACA
ABRAC
ABRA
ABR
AB
A

ABRACADABRA
BRACADABR
RACADAB
ACADA
CAD
A

[From vol. 1 of the 9th Edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1875). Author uncredited.]

3. A realm where nothing is fixed

Two weeks ago, after watching the finale of HBO's Rome, I lifted down the Index and the couple of volumes it directed me to in order to try and educate the impressions I had received from the very enjoyable TV series. I was much taken with what the Britannica's authors had to say regarding the personalities in that soap opera. Today I pulled down Volume II (Ana.-Ath.) looking to re-read the damning portrait of Mark Anthony which had so amused me, in order to share some of the salient points here, but in scanning the contents page and finding no entry, was led astray by the will-o-the-wisp fairy lights of the subject of "Apparitions".

"Apparitions" was written by Andrew Lang, M.A. The article has been transcribed and uploaded to www.1902encyclopedia.com and is well worth reading in full. The author begins by expounding a careful and logical hypothesis explaining the origin of the belief in spirits in primitive, ancient and modern societies. "[T]he further we go back in the history of civilisation, as in the works of nature, the simpler, the more identical, the more widely diffused are all its productions. The earliest implements for lighting fires, the earliest weapons, are not more alike than the earliest guesses of speculation and the earliest efforts of fancy. These oldest fancies dream of apparitions of the dead, and are preserved below the level of advancing culture, and insinuated into the ideas of the cultivated classes by the classes which are unprogressive, unaffected on the whole by religious or social changes." To illustrate the influence of what, post Jung, we may term the author's description of the collective unconsciousness, he cites the near identical practices of "the Scotch witch...the Kaffir witch...[the] Parisian sorceress... [and the] Finnish wise-woman."

So Mr Lang sets out to test his hypothesis with the following provision: "In entering the cloudland of folk-lore, it is impossible to advance too cautiously. This is a realm where nothing is fixed and definite ; where all is vague, floating, confused. He who would call up and try the spirits here must not place himself within too narrow a magic circle, but extend his view as far as possible to the beliefs of the most alien and distant races."

The margins of the Encyclopaedia Britannica have subject headings in a smaller font which assist the reader scanning an article to find the particular points of interest to themselves - in "Apparitions" Primitive beliefs, Fairies, Brownies, and Second sight lead us to ground familiar from our reading of "Torture", Apparitions in witchcraft.

Lang discusses the various factors which contributed to widespread belief, even amongst such persons as Henry More and John Wesley, in the veracity of the accusations made in witch trials relating the most grotesque and fantastical of happenings. The author notes that supposed witness accounts and confesions of the witch's compact with Satan resembled "[t]he same revolting ceremonies and travesties of the church service... as were attributed to the Templars... after which there ensued a licentious revel." He makes a plausible suggestion to explain the common characteristics of these supposed happenings: folk-memories of "those vast nocturnal gatherings, with their revival of pagan rights, their mockery of the church, their unnatural licentiousness, in which the popular misery of the 14th century found relief and expression." I must confess myself ignorant of the gatherings referred to, and hope that the 9th will shed further light on this matter some time in the future, as they sound rather fun.

Lang observes that Isobel Gowdie was burned as a witch in Nairn, Scotland in 1622 for "telling tales which would nowadays make her invaluable to the collector of [folklore]" He wryly adds that "modern believers in spiritualism claim the witches as martyrs of their own faith[...]." Of course 130 years later, in the age of superconductors, genomes, string theory etc, we have Wiccans to claim the witches as martyrs, as spiritualism is generally considered to be quite old-fashioned and silly.

Next, the subject of Ghosts gets the thorough treatment it deserves. Lang begins on a skeptical note, acknowledging that much evidence given of ghosts is "of the hearsay class ; it is almost as rare to find a witness who has seen a ghost as to encounter a person who does not know someone who has had this experience." After a comprehensive dissection of a range of learned scientific and philosophical thinking on the matter, the author rather surprisingly pitches in with a piece of hearsay of his own, recounting an example of a "genuine ghost story as contrasted with a hallucination:- It happened to a lady, a distant relative of the writer..." She is visited in Edinburgh by an apparition of her father - who was currently stationed in India - suffering from some pain in his side . She relates the event to a clergyman "with whom she was residing" (what is wrong with the world today that one can no longer provide such bonafides?) who made a note of the date and time of this uncanny occurrence. News later arrived from India that dat!dat!dah! her father had been injured! In his side! At the very time and date that the good lady's clerical acquaintance had faithfully recorded! Zounds!

There's something touching about the naive faith with which the author presents this dubious and unremarkable tale. If the testimony of a distant female relative and a clergyman have not already blown your mind, then prepare yourself for Mr Lang's very own experience.

"The writer once met, as he believed, a well-known and learned member of an English university who was really dying at a place more than a hundred miles distant from that in which he was seen."

He offers us no speculation as to the cause of this meeting nor any other details of the meeting itself - did they have tea and discuss Swedenborg? or merely raise hats and say good-day? - it must surely go without saying that our author would have had the good taste to refrain from enquiring after the distinguished gentleman's health.

The eminently pragmatic and thoughtful analysis of spiritualism that concludes the essay does nothing to dispel for me the impression given by these two short anecdotes that if ghosts of Christmas past, faerie kings, black dogs, headless highwaymen and their ilk were not popping up at every strike of midnight in the days of steam, then our forebears were nonetheless astrally projecting and behaving in strictly non-linear relations to the physical world, in a manner more fitting to the aesthetics of a David Lynch film than my notion of Victorian common sense and rationality would previously have suggested. For this I am very grateful.