Schopenhauer: Parerga and Paralipomena: Volume 1: Short Philosophical Essays Volume 1 (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer) by Arthur Schopenhauer

Author:Arthur Schopenhauer [Schopenhauer, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2014-02-27T23:00:00+00:00

(6) Visions that no longer concern the person having them and, nonetheless, immediately present future events that occur shortly or some time after, accurately and often in all their details, are characteristic of that rare gift that we call second sight,i or deuteroscopy.j An extensive collection of accounts of this is contained in Horst’s Deuteroskopie, 2 vols., 1830;k newer facts of this kind can also be found in various volumes of Kieser’s Archiv für den thierischen Magnetismus. The strange faculty for visions of this kind is by no means found exclusively in Scotland and Norway, but also occurs in our region, especially in regard to cases of death, about which accounts are to be found in Jung-Stilling’s Theory of Pneumatology,l §§153ff. Also the famous prophecy of Cazotte seems to be based on something of this kind.a Even among the negroes of the Sahara desert second sight is often found (S. James Richardson, Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa, London, 1853b).24 In fact, already in Homer we find (Odyssey XX, 351–7) a real deuteroscopy described, which even bears a strange resemblance to the story of Cazotte. Likewise Herodotus tells of a perfect deuteroscopy, VIII,[300] 65.c – In second sight the vision, as always arising initially from within the organism, reaches the highest degree of objective, actual reality and betrays through that a kind of connection to the external world completely different from the ordinary, physical one. As a waking state, it parallels the highest degrees of somnambulistic clairvoyance. It is really a perfect truth-dreaming while awake, or at least during a state lasting a few moments in the midst of waking. In addition, the vision of second sight, just like truth-dreams, is in many cases not theorematic, but allegorical, or symbolic, but, most curiously, in accordance with fixed symbols carrying the same meaning that arise in all seers, as can be found specified in the book by Horstd mentioned above, vol. 1, pp. 63–9, and in Kieser’s Archiv,e vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 105–8.

(7) Visions that render the past, in particular the forms of persons once alive, before the dream-organ that opens during wakefulness, provide the counterpart to those just considered, which are oriented towards the future. It is fairly certain that they can be occasioned by the nearby remains of corpses of these people located nearby. This extremely important experience, to which a lot of spirit apparitions can be traced, has its most solid and highly secure confirmation in a letter by Professor Ehrmann, the son-in-law of the poet Pfeffel, which is reproduced at lengthf in Kieser’s Archiv, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 151ff.g Excerpts from this are found in many books, for example, in F. Fischer’s Somnambulismus, vol. 1, p. 246.a But also apart from this, the experience is confirmed by many cases that can be attributed to it; of these I will mention here only a few. First is the story of pastor Lindner, told in the same letter,b and also from a good source, which has been repeated in many books as well, among them Die Seherin von Prevorst (vol.

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