Lxvii: Effluvia, the History of a Metaphor

Abstract

Emanations are the stock in trade of mediums, table-rappers, spiritists, and ghosts; they aid the reasoning of romantic poets and all those whose sensations outstrip their science and philosophy, providing a plausible, if undefined bridge between things apparently unconnected and making at least half-acceptable the inexplicable and the occult. Emanations are a metaphor—an old one. They have progressed through the whole biography of a metaphor from plain work-a-day description to science, to definition in philosophy, to the occult, and to poetry; indeed, they have lived that long biography at least twice in the memory of men. For the use of poetry, religion, and the mystical sciences emanations were discovered in the ancient world, lost, won again in renaissance times, and lost or temporarily abandoned by us.