The Sixth Sense

( Originally Published 1919 )

An Evening with Clever People—The Photograph—The Touch of an Armless Hand and a Spirit Call—Man's Faculties and Senses—Cause of Structural Changes—Examples from Animal Life—Cave Creatures—Birds that Cannot Fly—Rudimentary Organs—Statement of St. Francis Xavier—Decay of Certain Organs.

When wintering in Mexico, in 1912, I was induced to be one of six or eight ladies and gentlemen invited to partake of the hospitality of an Italian gentleman who, with his wife and daughter was staying for the winter in Mexico City.

After dinner we all adjourned to the reception room. For nearly two hours we conversed about various matters—second sight, true and false miracles, and the sixth sense.

They asked me about my visit to Chiapas and my interview with Colomache, the Maya seeress.

We began to talk of that Egyptian witchcraft by which the photograph or likeness of a friend appears on the palm of a child's hand on the demand of the sorcerer. A lady present in the room observed that an acquaintance of hers, Senor —, had, when in Cairo, purchased the secret of reproduction and had been able to do the thing, but having afterward become a practical Christian, he no longer practiced it.

A French gentleman, M. Dupotet, who was present with his daughter, a beautiful young girl of seventeen or eighteen, told of a strange experience which happened to him at Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where he went, accompanied by his daughter, to open an agency for a hardware firm of which he was senior partner.

"My daughter," he said, "occupied at the fonda (hotel) a room which opened into mine.

About midnight I awoke suddenly, felt a touch upon my shoulder and heard the words:

`Mon pere, viens, viens vice—Father come, come quick.' Thinking my child called me, I lighted my lamp and entered her room.

She was sleeping soundly, but to my horror, crawling on the sheet that covered her was a hideous white scorpion, the most deadly of its kind in Central America. Quickly lifting a rug from the floor, I fell upon and smothered it.

Unless the voice I heard was the voice of her guardian angel, I can in no way explain the mystery."

The father of our host remarked in the hearing of us all: "I can well believe this happened, for we are surrounded with beings that we know The more intimately we study animated nature, and, in particular, human nature, the more we are persuaded that not only men, but all other creatures have, by force of circumstances, by changes in food, climate, environment, and other conditions experienced in the course of ages many structural alterations. While inheriting, by a slow process, powers of adaptation, they have lost, through disuse, organs and faculties which in the remote past were integral and necessary parts of their being.

It is of common knowledge that in the dark recesses of underground caves and rivers, where eternal darkness reigns, many wonderful creatures exist and perpetuate themselves.

One of the greatest subterranean vaults in the world is the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. It has been penetrated for thirty miles and is not yet fully explored. Through this cave the Styx River flows in profound darkness, and, in places whose depths cannot be sounded, swims a very peculiar fish, the Cyprinodon, which is blind.

It has eyes that see not it has lost the sense of sight, but the eyes and sight are not absolutely dead, for the Cyprinodon, when placed in an aquarium and in a mild light, recovers after two generations its power of distinguishing objects.

In the subterranean rivers flowing through the cavernous Alps of Carniola live strange fish and singular creatures entirely blind.

Among these is 'the Proteus, a peculiar lizard-shaped creature provided with lungs and gills, which seems to combine all the attributes of an amphibious animal. In some of the crabs the eye sockets remain, though the eyes are gone.

It is as if the tripod-stand of a transit was found with the transit missing. As it is difficult to understand that eyes, though useless, could be of any assistance to fish, bird, or insect living in perpetual darkness, the loss of sight must be attributed to disuse. The cave-rat captured by Professor Silman in Guiana, was totally blind, but after living for a month in graduated light, it acquired a dim perception of objects.

There is no greater anomaly in nature than a bird that cannot fly, yet there are many such, e. g., the logger-headed duck of Venezuela, the Emu and the ostrich. In time the domestic lien, goose, and duck will no doubt entirely lose the power of flying. Long disuse will weaken their pinions. "None of our domestic animals can be named," writes Geoffroy Hilaire in his "Laws of Variations," "but has suffered a diminution of hearing, seeing, and smelling, and this is due to these animals being seldom much alarmed."

Structurally, men and animals have not changed in four thousand years. The men and animals embalmed or figured on the monuments of ancient Egypt, are identical with those now living. But the rudimentary organs now belonging to both orders, and which in remote ages were developed and served a useful purpose, simply that in prehistoric times animals, and possibly men, were anatomically different from their existing descendants. The structural changes wrought by time are due largely to altered climatic conditions, to change of food, and to the disuse of the organs themselves.

Darwin, in his "Origin of Species," assures us that the boa constrictor retains rudimentary marks of a pelvis and of hind legs, and that the manatee (sea-cow) has rudimentary nails.

It would be difficult to name one of the higher animals in which some organ is not in a rudimentary condition. What can be more curious than teeth in foetal whales, which, when grown up, have not a tooth in their heads. Again, in nearly all mammalia, the males have rudimentary mamma (teats). Rudimentary organs in some males still retain their potentiality. This occasionally happens with the breasts and mamma of male animals which are well developed and secrete milk, as in the examples recorded by Von Humboldt and St. Francis Xavier, and may account for the origin of the Couvade among certain primitive tribes in China, Brazil, Guiana, and Madras.

Von Humboldt, in the third volume of his " Voyage aux Regions Equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent," says he saw, and verified his seeing by contact, a man in the Indian village of Parana, Columbia, S. A., suckling a three-months' old baby. In a letter written by St. Francis Xavier in October, 1547, to the members of his Society at Rome, he states: "In this Island of Amboyna (Malay Archipelago) I have seen what no one would believe, and what has been unheard of till now; so perhaps it will be worth while to tell you. I saw a he-goat giving suck to his kids with his own milk. He had but one breast, which gave every day as much milk as would fill a basin. I saw it with my own eyes, for I would not believe it without seeing it."

In the udder of a cow there are four developed and two rudimentary teats, but the latter in some of our domestic cows become well developed and give milk. How may we account for the sterility of these teats in nearly all cows except through disuse? Without doubt disuse has been the main agent in rendering organs rudimentary. These atrophied organs are witnesses to what the animal, or individual, was in other ages. They may be compared with letters which are retained in the spelling of a word, and, though of no use in pronunciation, they give us a clue to the derivation of the word itself.

Since there can be no doubt that in animals certain organs have been atrophied through disuse, may there not be in animals and men latent spiritual, psychic, or atavistic powers which have, through disuse or under altered conditions of life, almost disappeared? We know that the sense of fear or caution has almost disappeared in our domestic animals and that all of their physical senses have become impaired.

On the day of our rescue there was something very strange about the dog, which possibly students of animal psychology may be able to explain. He always used to share the bed of one of the men, and would remain quiet until the usual hour of rising. But on this particular morning, quite contrary to custom, he became so restless at about six o 'clock that the cook, already at work, could not keep him indoors, but had to let him out. Lying awake, I heard the cook exclaim : " What the dickens is the matter with the dog?" "Beef" was running about on the sands apparently mad with joy, barking and playing in a most unusual manner.