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From:

Petra Schoenenberger

Transformations of the SupernaturalProblems of Representation in the Work of Daniel Defoe

February 2017, 204 p., 32,99 €, ISBN 978-3-8376-3775-5

Daniel Defoe’s work displays a keen interest in stories of supernatural encounters.Once considering how one might prove supernatural occurrences and whether one cantrust eyewitness accounts, Defoe demonstrates that more is at stake. Like his contem-poraries, Defoe wonders about the range of scientific insight, and about the moral andepistemological ramifications of unchallenged trust and faith. His transformations ofthe supernatural probe the boundaries of knowledge and evidence and play with thelimits of cognition, emphasizing the inseparability of mind and emotion.

Petra Schoenenberger (PhD) is a scholar of English literature who trained at the Uni-versity of Zurich, Switzerland.

For further information:www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-3775-5

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Contents

1 Introduction | 7

1.1 Transforming Supernaturalism | 7

1.2 Contextualising Daniel Defoe’s Work on the Supernatural | 10

1.3 Jane Wenham: A Case in Point | 13

1.4 Defoe’s Supernatural Tracts | 16

1.5 How to Qualify the “Supernatural” | 20

1.6 Seeking Certainty of Self | 26

1.7 Chapter Overview | 31

PART I: DANIEL DEFOE’S SUPERNATURALISM REVISITED:

JUDGMENT AND THE BURDEN OF PROOF

2 Daniel Defoe’s Supernatural Tracts and Contemporary

Supernaturalism: Problems of Language and Evidence | 37

2.1 Introduction | 38

2.2 The Idea of Being Able to Study the Supernatural | 41

2.3 Analysing the Supernatural | 45

2.4 Disengagement from Demonological Debates | 49

2.5 The Question of Evidence | 53

2.6 Defoe’s Treatment of Evidence of the Supernatural | 58

2.7 Defoe’s Lines of Argumentation in his Supernatural Tracts | 64

2.8 Summary | 68

PART II: TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE SUPERNATURAL:

PROPHECY AND DELUSION

3 Defoe’s Play with the “As If”: Fiction, Delusion

and Imagination | 71


3.2 Disruptive Imagination | 76

3.3 Imagination and Uncertainty | 83

3.4 “Deluded” Imagination | 88

3.5 Error or Delusion? Discrediting Testimonies | 94

3.6 Delusion as a Motif | 99

4 Describing Emotional Conflict and Continuity of Experience in

Defoe’s Narratives Journal of the Plague Year, Robinson

Crusoe and Roxana | 107


4.2 Transformations of the Prophetic Voice: The Case

of Robinson Crusoe | 110

4.3 Transformations of the Magical: The Case of Fear

in A Journal of the Plague Year | 117

4.4 Transformations of the Demonic: The Case of Roxana;

or, The Fortunate Mistress | 122

4.5 Summary | 130

PART III: SINGULAR EXPERIENCE AND COLLECTIVE

KNOWLEDGE

5 Frames of Knowledge in Daniel Defoe’s Story-Telling | 133


5.2 Offering an Aetiological Myth of Knowledge | 136

5.3 Dialogic Stories | 140

5.4 Fact and Fiction: Embedded Story-Telling in

A Journal of the Plague Year | 145

5.5 The Failure of Dialogic Interaction | 161

5.6 Enacting Knowledge: Self-Fashioning in Roxana | 164

5.7 Summary | 170

6 Conclusion | 173

7 Bibliography | 1779

7.1 Primary Literature | 179

7.2 Secondary Literature | 186

1 Introduction

How to bring the World to a right Temper

between these Extreams is a Difficulty we

cannot answer for; but if setting things in a true

light, between Imagination and solid Founda-

tion, will assist towards it, we hope this Work

may have some Success

DANIEL DEFOE, ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF

APPARITIONS, PREFACE, 39.

1.1 TRANSFORMING SUPERNATURALISM

Late in his career, Daniel Defoe renews an earlier interest of his in the

supernatural. From 1726 till 1727, he writes three treatises, The Political History

of the Devil, A System of Magick, and An Essay on the History of Apparitions.

Defoe’s tracts are part of a distinguishable popular genre, which effectively

brings together popular beliefs in an invisible world of spirits with speculative

and empirical philosophy. Properly called “supernaturalism” for its self-

conception as the possible application of natural science beyond the immediately

physical, or “super naturam”, it turns out to be a thought experiment for

empirical theories, which intrigues Defoe and his predecessors.

Arguably, supernaturalist tracts constitute a sub-genre of general popular

writings on occult practices and phenomena, such as divination, astrology,

magic, prophecy, apparitions, haunting, palmistry, cunning men, and witchcraft.

The reader of such sensational popular literature is meant to sympathise with the

victim in cases of alleged witchcraft, or to feel fear of supposed encounters with

the demonic. Recounting incidents and testimonials of victims and witnesses, the

tracts bear all the marks of a “human interest” story. In fact, many of the more

academic tracts on the supernatural are similarly organised around particular

cases. But by contrast to sensational tales of apparitions, seventeenth-century

8 | TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE SUPERNATURAL

academic and philosophical writers discuss the evidence, and in the case of

witchcraft, the subsequent trials, with the intention of determining the nature and

admissibility of the evidence. The attention of the reader is directed to the

evidence of the particular case, legal as well as empirical, to be then drawn into a

discussion of reliability and justified doubt.

The interest in the materiality of possible supernatural phenomena is -

furthermore a result of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century.

Lorraine Daston argues that the interest in the supernatural triggers important

innovations in the methodology of empiricism: wonder at an incident is elicited

by its falling outside the usual paradigms of explanation (cf. discussion in

chapter one). Many seventeenth-century writers were members of the Royal

Society, such as Joseph Glanvill, or advocates of the new experimental sciences,

as proposed by Sir Francis Bacon. These writers essentially established a

discourse on the supernatural, which differs from its popular counterpart of

miracle pamphlets and astrological predictions. The discourse on the

supernatural as inspired by the scientific revolution only briefly surfaces in the

late seventeenth century, particularly in the Glanvill-Webster debate (discussed

below). This so-called supernaturalism drew its life from the confrontation of

empiricism with spirituality, on the one hand, and scepticism, on the other hand.

Engaging with the subject of supernatural phenomena allows the authors to

maintain or dismiss a range of sceptical tenets, while at the same time defending

the empirical idea of knowledge as a direct correspondence between perception,

external object and internal image. Some writers are openly sceptical of alleged

supernatural phenomena, as for instance Reginald Scot and John Webster.

Others argue that precisely because one has to doubt human perception of

presumably supernatural phenomena, one has to acknowledge the possibility of

such phenomena.

In 1715, Francis Hutchinson wrote An Historical Essay Concerning

Witchcraft. Hutchinson addresses the fact that despite all the literature explaining

witchcraft charges as the result of the accusers’ “melancholic imaginations”,

people still read the books by Joseph Glanvill, Richard Baxter and Henry More:

“These Books and Narratives are in Tradesmen’s Shops, and Farmer’s Houses,

and are read with great Eagerness, and are continually levening the Minds of the

Youth, who delight in such Subjects; and considering what sore Evils these

Notions bring when they prevail, I hope no Man will think but that they must

still be combated, oppos’d, and kept down” (Hutchinson, “Dedication”, p. 14).

What Hutchinson alludes to is the stratification of the readership by age and

social status, implying a social devaluation of the works of Glanvill, Henry More

and Richard Baxter, and thus calling into doubt the authority of their claims.

INTRODUCTION | 9

In his tracts, Defoe offers a synthesis of seventeenth-century views. He takes

up the sceptical challenge of his predecessors’ tracts by focussing on the

certainty of knowledge. Moreover, the debate on the plausibility of supernatural

phenomena is, among other things, a discussion of probability and validity of

evidence. As with his predecessors, so-called supernatural phenomena are worth

the attention because they raise a series of questions about epistemology and

about the human mind. Studying Defoe’s fictions in the context of his late

supernatural tracts, one detects a complex relationship between contemporary

ideas about knowledge and the supernatural, analytic discourse and the

subjective singularity of individual experience represented in novelistic

narratives.

Finding language appropriate to describe the experience of the supernatural

provides Defoe with a vocabulary to render emotive and cognitive moments of

crisis. Doubt becomes “confusion”. This is one way for the faithful to understand

his or her own scepticism. Confusion, moreover, is the symptom of the

condition. Daniel Defoe’s work describes a variety of “symptoms” in an attempt

to come to terms with the contrast between the individual’s own singular

experience and the desired security of the certain objective statement. Certainty

about one’s knowledge and beliefs is prerequisite to any meaningful statement.

Confusion, on the other hand, may result from deception, error, misinformation

or bad judgment. Defoe’s narratives effectively transform supernaturalism. In his

fictions, hypothesis, anticipation and manipulative deception are metaphorically

recast as prophecy and supernatural inspiration. Furthermore, prophecy is one of

Defoe’s main structuring plot devices. In addition, the verbal gesture to the

supernatural realm provides the emotional language of moments of confusion.

Confusion is a rough term that encompasses a series of cognitive and emotional

moments characterising the experience of difficult situations and conflicts. It

describes the disruption, the speechlessness, surprise and the fear that Defoe’s

protagonists often experience. How to describe this confusion, how to re-

establish certainty, and how to ensure the continuity of experience are the

transformations of the supernatural studied in this dissertation. Arguably, since

Defoe’s engagement with supernaturalist themes comprises cognitive as well as

emotional aspects of the self, it helps crystallize what might be called Defoe’s

narrative psychology.


1.2 CONTEXTUALISING DANIEL DEFOE’S WORK ON THE SUPERNATURAL

Earlier texts on the supernatural debate conceptual differences, which point to

the changes in scientific paradigms occurring in the seventeenth century. Faith in

reason and rational argument is contrasted with empirical evidence. The validity

and scope of empirical evidence is as much contested as is the reliance on the

testimony of individual witnesses. The individual witness is under scrutiny for

the intactness of his cognitive and mental abilities, even if a psychiatric concept

of mental illness is yet to be defined. If science could prove religion,

supernaturalism might well provide the solution. Supernaturalism is only a cover

term but the texts will in fact share the common characteristic that they border

on theological or ontological topics without offering explanations typical of

those disciplines. The supernaturalism of the late 17th and early 18

th century must

be read as part of the ongoing paradigmatic changes in the discourses of science,

philosophy and theology.

Scientifically, supernaturalism is discussed from two different points of

view. On the one hand, philosophers like Joseph Glanvill and scientists like

Isaac Newton propose a theory of the universe that will appropriate

supernaturalist views – such as a belief in prophecy – as part of the larger

system. Someone like John Webster, on the other hand, defends a Paracelsian

position understanding nature in terms of a mystical chemistry. The synthesis of

the two views is one of the achievements of the Enlightenment. Furthermore, the

supernatural tracts of the period, from roughly 1660 to 1730, are to a large extent

a direct response to the materialism of Thomas Hobbes and the deism of the

younger generation of John Toland and Anthony Collins. While Defoe seems to

attempt to reach a synthesis between reasonable but not radical Christianity and

the mystery of revelation, his negotiation of terms such as orthodoxy and

enthusiasm shows that in his eyes the conflict is far from resolved.

It is evident from contemporary tracts on the supernatural that the genre

slowly becomes a means to begin a discourse on faith, reason and the

supernatural (notably, including both the angelic and demonic supernatural).

Even though Providence and determinism are major issues, the supernaturalist

genre does not provide arguments concerning Grace and other topics of

fundamental theology, nor does it make a theological statement on sin. Yet, there

is hardly a theological or philosophical text of the 17th century that does not in

some way or other make a statement on the supernatural order of beings.

However, the concept of the Great Chain of Beings, the idea that there is a realm

of spirits that plausibly share the same essence as our souls, and the absolute

INTRODUCTION | 11

trust in Divine Providence, while present in the supernaturalist treatises, are not

the subject matter of these treatises.

Writers of supernatural treatises invariably face a double epistemological

quandary. First, the supernatural is arguably beyond the knowable. For

seventeenth-century philosophers like John Locke the inability to gain

knowledge on the supernatural does not in fact prove it does not exist, since

existence is not determined by our conception. Not all writers on the

supernatural share this view. They would argue that evidence for supernatural

occurrences is available. With this assertion, they also deny a fundamental

dichotomy of faith and knowledge.

Second, the collectors of reports of supernatural and preternatural

phenomena face yet another epistemological problem, which concerns the

reliability and credibility of such reports. The most frequent reproaches against

the so-called evidence in the form of stories are accusations of deceit and

tricking, as well as delusion and error, on the part of either the reporter or the

witness. Part of the rationale of believers in apparition stories is to argue that if

we accept that our ideas about the world are based on how things appear to us

and are then re-presented and processed in our minds, then how can we possibly

be sure that there may not be apparitions of a more extraordinary kind. Thus, it is

the fascination with what is and might be possible, with what may be imagined

and what is imaginable, that drives the supernaturalism as it is encountered in the

seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century intellectual discourse on the

supernatural.

All the tracts are characterised by the fact that they are self-reflexive in that

they devote some space and attention to their own motivation, intention, method

and material. Indeed, it is their contemplation of both method and material that

distinguishes them from the extant seventeenth- and eighteenth- century

pamphlet literature on miracles, ghosts and apparitions. The question whether

supernatural phenomena, both angelic and demonic, are possible, is frequently

tied to the possibility of witchcraft. “Real” witchcraft would presuppose the

possibility of a direct interaction between a human being and a demonic entity,

thus breaching the physics of matter and substance.

For the purpose of this discussion, the following selection of treatises on the

supernatural is considered: Anonymous, A Full Confutation of Witchcraft.

London, 1712. And: The Case of the Hertfordshire Witchcraft Consider’d. Being

an Examination of a Book entitl’d , A Full and Impartial Discovery of Sorcery

and Witchcraft. London, 1712. John Aubrey, Miscellanies, London, 1721.

Francis Bragge, A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and

Witchcraft, London, 1712. Samuel Clarke, A Letter to Mr Dodwell; wherein all


the arguments in his Epistolary Discourse against the immortality of the soul are

particularly answered… London, 1706. Daniel Defoe, Mrs Veal, 1705, and

History of Apparitions, and The Political History of the Devil, and System of

Magick. George Gifford, A Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcraftes. In

which is laide open how craftely the Divell deceiveth not onely the Witches but

many other and so leadeth them awrie into many great errours. London, 1593.

Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the way to Science;

In an Essay of The Vanity of Dogmatizing, and Confident Opinion. With a Reply

to the Exceptions Of the Learned Thomas Albius. London, 1665, and A Blow at

Modern Sadducism. In some Philosophical Considerations About Witchcraft And

the Relation of the Famed Disturbance at the House of M. Mompesson. With

Reflections on Drollery and Atheisme. The Fourth Edition Corrected and

Inlarged. London, 1668, and Sadducism Triumphatus. London, 1726. Francis

Hutchinson, An Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft. London, 1718.

Reginald Scot, The Discovery of Witchcraft, 1665. John Trenchard, A Natural

History of Superstition. John Webster, The Displaying of supposed Witchcraft.

London, 1678.

As these tracts influence Defoe’s thought on the supernatural, we will

discuss the various concepts of imagination, knowledge and delusion in context

of Joseph Glanvill’s, John Webster’s, Locke’s, George Gifford’s and Francis

Hutchinson’s tracts. Defoe’s relationship to the 17th-century philosopher Joseph

Glanvill is important. It has been pointed out (McKeon, 1987) that Defoe is

indebted to Glanvill. Glanvill is the central figure in this discussion because

Defoe refers to him as a source. Moreover, Glanvill’s contribution Sadducism

Triumphatus must be considered in the context of the controversy between

Glanvill and Webster.1 Defoe not only criticises some aspects of Glanvill’s

thought, he also offers a synthesis of the debate between the two.

Still, like Glanvill, Defoe is committed to countering heterodox religious

views, which he perhaps addresses most clearly in HD, where he reads Paradise

Lost as the work of an anti-Trinitarian and responds to it as if it were an

exposition of an anti-Trinitarian cosmology. Glanvill in turn identifies heterodox

views with atheism and scepticism. While Glanvill in fact adopts the Cartesian

sceptical method, he attacks the Pyrrhonic scepticism that was revived in the

Renaissance and still important in the 17th century. Similarly, what Glanvill

considers atheism seems nearly synonymous with the Epicureanism of Thomas

1 Burns, William E. Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680) DNB. Jobe, Th. H. describes John

Webster (1610-1682) as a “radical Protestant, chemical physician, and visionary

Baconian” (ISIS 1981: 72 (263), 343).

INTRODUCTION | 13

Hobbes and Pierre Gassendi. Again, Defoe appears to follow suit when asserting

scriptural truth, and adopting a Newtonian view of the world.

1.3 JANE WENHAM: A CASE IN POINT

A good example of how popular perception of the supernatural comes into

contact with the academic discourse on the supernatural is the historical case of

Jane Wenham.2 It demonstrates how the 17th-century academic discourse has

outlived itself by 1712, when Jane Wenham of Walkerne in Hertfordshire was

sentenced to death for felony and witchcraft. First of all, even though Jane

Wenham was found guilty, she was later acquitted on a Royal Pardon apparently

obtained by Judge Powell who had been sitting her case at the assizes. Secondly,

after the court sessions, the case was debated in pamphlets in 1712. It is in fact

the last instance of a witchcraft trial in England in which the defendant was

sentenced to death.

Furthermore, it created a public polemic with two major participants, Francis

Bragge and a physician of Hertfordshire who remains anonymous. Reading the

original tracts by Bragge and the physician engaged in the immediate debate on

the 1712 Jane Wenham case, one notes that both sides work with the major

arguments and problems that are cited by the philosophers and theologians

writing on the supernatural.3 Both polemicists clearly affiliate themselves to one

of the two camps, defending or opposing the possibility of witchcraft. Thus, they

debate testimony and reliability, the nature of evil, and certainty and truth, while

2 Until Mark Knights’ recent publication, the case of Jane Wenham has received little

attention. In The Devil in Disguise, Mark Knights discusses Hertford history,

focussing on three main events, the trial of Spencer Cowper of the Hertford Cowpers,

the Sacheverell controversy (in which the Cowper family was involved) and the trial

of Jane Wenham. Knight contends the exemplary nature of these events to elucidate

the “revolutionary changes” of the Early Enlightenment (2011: 2). The present

discussion is based on the anonymous tracts A Full Confutation of Witchcraft, 1712,

and The Case of the Hertfordshire Witchcraft considered, 1712, as well as on Francis

Bragge’s replies (cited below).

3 Cf. Bragge, Francis. A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and

Witchcraft, Practis’d by Jane Wenham of Walkerne in Hertfordshire, upon the Bodies

of Anne Thorn, Anne Street. London 1712. BOD Gough Herts 10 (6); and A Full

Confutation of Witchcraft. London, 1712. BOD Gough Herts 10 (6).


relying on competing explanations. In the shortest common denominator it is

madness or melancholy versus devil.

Jane Wenham was accused of witchcraft and felony and sent to the assizes

by Sir Henry Chauncy, who first heard the case. The key witnesses were Mrs

Gardiner and Reverend Gardiner, Francis Bragge (the father of the Francis

Bragge above), Matthew Gilston, servant of one John Chapman, neighbour of

the Gardiner family; Reverend Strutt (who made Jane say the Lord’s Prayer);

and Susan Aylott, who lost her child, claiming that Jane Wenham had bewitched

the child. There are six pamphlets relating to this case. Francis Bragge wrote

three tracts in favour of the Jury’s ruling that Jane Wenham was guilty. An

anonymous writer, known as the “physician of Hertfordshire”, wrote to show

that Jane Wenham must be innocent because there is no such thing as witchcraft.

Indeed, one of the physician’s tracts aims only to show how erroneous Francis

Bragge’s opinions were.

Joseph Glanvill’s role in this kind of controversy becomes apparent, by the

way in which Francis Bragge uses Glanvill’s writings to justify the belief in

witchcraft:

But being informed, that the Incredulity of the Judge, together with the great Proneness of

the Age to Sadducees and Incredulity, had caused many Objections to be rais’d against

that faithful and impartial Relation of Matter of Fact, I thought my self obliged, for my

own Vindication, and that of the Persons principally concern’s in the Prosecution, not to

remain silent, when I had so much to urge in my Defence.

[…]

Having also, upon reading Mr. Glanvill’s Book, met with an Instance of a Discovery of

Witchcraft, almost in every Circumstance agreeing with our Case, I thought my self

obliged to insert it with Observations upon those parts of it which so nearly our particular

Case, that the one seems to be a Copy of the other. (Witchcraft farther display’d,

“Introduction”, p. 1, my emphases in underscoring)

The anonymous physician on the other hand observes:

[There] are those who look upon the Being of Witches of such Concernment in Religion,

that whatsoever has any tendency to destroy the belief of that must of necessity weaken

the other. [He then summarizes] That the Existence as well of Spirits in general, as of Evil

Spirits in particular, being of such Importance to be believed, and Witchcraft being as they

suppose so evident and sensible a Demonstration of both, it seems that any Attempts made

against the Latter is endeavouring to rob Religion of one considerable Guard which should

secure it against the Attempts of prophane and licentious Men. This they will tell us is of

the Outworks of our Faith, and that when once a Breach is made here, Religion will lose

INTRODUCTION | 15

round apace and Atheism come on by larger Strides: That when once Men come to deny

there are Spirits or Witches, it is a fair Step and Introduction to say, there is no God. (The

Case of the Hertfordshire witchcraft consider’d, “The Preface”, pp. 4, 5)

Even though he argues that he is not attacking Glanvill’s reasoning directly, he is

in fact doing more than that. He questions whether this line of argument is at all

justified. So, before entering into a debate of the single premises and so-called

known facts, he dismisses the entire question, so that he can say:

I deny neither the Being of Spirits nor the Being of Witches, but will allow both the one

and the other all the Credit and Authority they can reasonably pretend to. But then, I

desire to be excused, if I cannot give my assent to every idle Story, and believe that to be

an instance of Witchcraft, which whimsical and credulous people shall affirm to be such.

(The Case of the Hertfordshire witchcraft consider’d, “The Preface”, p. 5)

As a speech act these last two sentences signal that the physician wants to avoid

drawing any suspicion of being an atheist, since it would actually hurt his own

argument if he came across as a zealot for his cause, and since it might make

people dismiss what he has to say. Secondly, the first sentence “I deny neither

the Being of Spirits nor the Being of Witches, but will allow both the one and the

other all the Credit and Authority they can reasonably pretend to” is really not

saying anything, since he does not commit to either opinion.

What is noteworthy, moreover, is that in this short quotation the imagination

is not a positive entity. After all, in the physician’s view, both acting on a whim

and believing anything is due to an overactive imagination. And here, too, the

imagination is the source of error. But other than Glanvill’s, the physician’s

notion of the imagination lays the blame strictly with human nature and perhaps

disease, not with the supernatural. Indeed, he effectively says that only over-

imaginative, or else mad people believe that there are witches. In this, his

argument bears a certain resemblance to Reginald Scot’s sceptical account, in

which he explains not so much the accusers’ but the defendants’ belief that they

are witches with melancholy, which induces delusions. But of course, the

physician cannot leave it at philosophical speculation or at old case stories, since

he is answering a real case.

To the physician in Hertfordshire it is clear that Ann Thorn suffers from a

severe mental disorder, and he argues that she was suffering from an epileptic fit

which Ann Thorn herself described as a “roaming in the head” and which he

translates as “giddiness”. The physician combines a kind of linguistic analysis,

that is, he analyses the language and asks what the witnesses really mean by that,


with an analysis of the arguments brought forth to interpret the so-called

evidence, all the while having to fend off the reproach of being an atheist.

1.4 DEFOE’S SUPERNATURAL TRACTS

Let us turn to Daniel Defoe’s so-called supernatural tracts. Defoe clearly

believed in the reality of a spiritual realm (cf. Baine, 1968; Katherine Clark,

2007; Starr, 2003, 2005). Moreover, he believed in the work of Providence in the

life of every man and woman (cf. Hunter, 1966; Novak, 1963; Rosen, 2001;

Starr, 1965; Zimmerman, 1975). However, the stories of supernatural encounters

such as apparitions centre on the isolated perspective of the individual claiming

to have had such an experience. The voice of the author is in dialogue with the

story, which is to be assessed and either confirmed or dismissed. The singularity

of the experience forces the reader to confront the question of human judgment

in the face of a possibly delusional, and certainly singular, event. As an author,

Defoe distances himself from his material by underlining the satirical

implications of his tracts. Still, Defoe is both interested in the material for its

own sake, and for its satirical uses as a vehicle to expose human and social

follies.

A System of Magick is Defoe’s second treatise published in 1727. It exhibits

a strongly historical, as well as anthropological, view of religion and its

relationship to science; and in doing so, it reflects on the paradigmatic changes

informing seventeenth-century science and philosophy. An Essay on the History

of Apparitions (1727), Defoe’s last supernatural tract, is more concerned with

whether or not men are able to judge and be certain about such matters as cannot

be known by empirical methods. It deals with one of the key issues in the

discourse on the supernatural, where philosophers and polemicists tried to find

empirical evidence for the supernatural. Defoe seems to go a step further in A

System of Magick by suggesting that the magic of old was really science, thus

elevating the pursuit of knowledge to a quasi-spiritual status.

History of Apparitions was first published in 1727 with J. Roberts in

Warwick-Lane. The first octavo edition was illustrated with several plates. Its

title-page was printed in red and black ink, imitating the 1726 edition of Joseph

Glanvill’s Sadducism Triumphatus, the title-page of which is also in red and

black ink. As already pointed out, Glanvill is a key figure as one of the

seventeenth-century defenders of witchcraft beliefs. His argument for the reality

of witchcraft is in apparent contrast with his argument against dogmatic

philosophy. This contrast creates problems of interpretation to the modern

INTRODUCTION | 17

reader, as Glanvill’s use of a sceptical method is difficult to reconcile with his

willingness to defend ghost stories and witch hunts unreservedly. However,

Glanvill’s Sadducism should be read and understood in the context of Henry

More’s Neo-Platonism.

History of Apparitions is equally imitation and parody of Sadducism

Triumphatus. Defoe’s satiric appropriation of Glanvill’s tract is visible already

by a comparison of the title pages. Both title pages exhibit similar typographical

features, including the use of capitalised words and alignment of single words

and the double-ruled frame of the entire page. The imitative and satirical quality

becomes more pronounced when one realises that Defoe’s text was also

published under his pseudonym Andrew Moreton in 1727 and 1728. These two

editions do not actually include the title History of Apparitions, but they contain

the same illustrations and, above all, the actual text is virtually the same.4 Defoe

used the pseudonym of Andrew Moreton, according to Max Novak, when he

wanted to adopt the guise of the disgruntled elderly gentleman who has to teach

mankind a lesson.

A Political History of the Devil was one of Defoe’s more successful works,

going into several editions. The success was posthumous, as Defoe died in 1731.

In contrast to History of Apparitions, the History of the Devil was first published

in octavo in 1726, but then republished as duodecimo. As Marie Hamilton Law

argues in 1925, Charles Dickens was aware of The History of the Devil when he

wrote Oliver Twist (PMLA 40: 4, 892ff.). Similarly, George Eliot uses History of

the Devil in her novel The Mill on the Floss. This suggests that Defoe’s use of

the demonic and supernatural, especially of apparitions, attained literary

influence.

Recently, two editions of The History of the Devil make the text available to

a larger audience again.5 In his introduction to the more recent publication of

History of the Devil, John Mullan proposes to consider History of the Devil,

System of Magic and Essay on Apparitions as a “coherent body of work” and

suggests that the latter two are sequels of the History of the Devil (1f.).

Evidently, Mullan is correct with his claim that the three texts ought to be seen

in relation to each other. Indeed, it makes sense to view the three together, since

they each treat different aspects of the same problem. The Political History of

the Devil is, as indicated by the title, not only a political satire but also a

demonological tract. A System of Magick historicizes the supernaturalist

discourse and History of Apparitions exposes the vagaries of unquestioning faith.

4 Cf. Title page. ESTC T070845.

5 In 2003, Irving Rothman and Michael Bowerman edited the tract for “The Stoke

Newtington Daniel Defoe Edition”.


Revisiting Defoe’s narrative fictions, one can contextualise the three tracts

with the fictions. In fact, the tracts can provide a meta-fictional commentary.

What Defoe thought about the devil is of some concern in critics’ readings of

Robinson Crusoe and Roxana.6 Moreover, as the tracts deal with questions of

epistemology, this body of works is meta-discursive in relation to the

seventeenth-century discourse on the supernatural. If however the aim were to

address Defoe’s supernaturalism notwithstanding its relationship to earlier

debates, there are more works to be taken into consideration, such as Defoe’s

“Meditations” (a set of poems he wrote as a young man, made available by

Healey’s edition), “The Angelick Vision of Robinson Crusoe”, “The Storm”, and

“Mrs Veal”.7 The result of such a study would not only be to trace Defoe’s

thought on the subject matter, as has been done by Rodney Baine in 1968, but

also to combine what might be called the religious dimension of Defoe’s work

with ontological questions asking for the role and significance of the definition

of substance, matter and spirit in Defoe’s work. However, such a project was not

envisaged here, since Defoe is not especially interested in the theoretical aspects

of philosophical questions. Ilse Vickers has similarly noted Defoe’s disinterest in

theory in his work in her study of Defoe’s relationship with the New Sciences

(1996).

Apart from the problem of Defoe’s supernaturalism, and apart from the

problem of meta-discursive and meta-fictional contextualisation, yet another

question is the polemical nature of each tract taken on its own. Again, the tracts

point to each other. The frontispiece of The History of the Devil shows the

Roman Catholic pope surrounded by prelates in the background, and a Turkish

male figure in the company of a lady in the foreground. A classical arch

separates the two groups spatially. By her proximity to the Turkish figure, the

female figure seems to belong to the world of Roxana. Certainly, the illustration

is an intertextual comment on the topics of The History.8 The frontispiece

imagines a classical space combining symbols of suspicious nature. An already

alien religion is paired with the exotic foreign of yet another religion, and with a

sexually charged figure suggesting immorality and disloyalty. Given this triangle

6 Brett McInelly and David Paxman discuss the biblical imagery in Roxana, and focus

on the figure of the devil in particular. See Brett C. McInelly and David Paxman.

“Dating the Devil: Daniel Defoe’s Roxana and The Political History of the Devil.”

2004, 435-454; and Albert J. Rivero, “The Restored Garden and the Devil as Christ:

Defoe’s Inversion of Biblical Images of Salvation in Roxana.” 285-291.)

7 Defoe’s authorship of The Apparition of Mrs Veal has been contested (cf. G. A. Starr,

2003).

8 Cf. Büttner and Gottdang, 2009: 244-5.

INTRODUCTION | 19

of suspect allegorical symbolism, the illustration also indicates a satirical verve

of the tracts that goes beyond the history of religion and epistemological

problems, and suggests a direct satirical engagement with the weakness of

human nature and the shortcomings of religious institutions.

Defoe’s quarrel is not with the Roman Catholic church exclusively, but with

church establishment: “I may examine … who has the best claim to his

brotherhood, the Papists or the Protestants, and among the latter the Lutherans or

the Calvinists, and so descending to all the severall denominations of churches,

see who has less of the Devil in them, and who more (2003: 37, sic). The

preoccupation with established religion is echoed in Robinson Crusoe, when

Friday describes his native religion to Robinson, and Robinson observes that

even among “primitive” societies there is “priesthood”.

Similarly, A System of Magick looks back to ancient religions. While it

celebrates Christianity as the final consequence of a teleological view of the

history of religion, it shares a negative assessment of all forms of religion as

institutional. Defoe’s rejection of church hierarchies in these tracts can be read as

a tribute to his dissenting background. It moreover develops the theme of

personal responsibility, according to which the individual is accountable in

religious beliefs as much as in political convictions, further highlighting the

relevance of independent judgment.

Yet, once it is termed “singular”, independence of judgment is an ambivalent

proposition. The singular describes the subjectivity of individual experience, but

it also refers to the isolation of the self. In the “Preface to the Second Edition” of

History of the Devil Defoe states that “the subject is singular, and it has been

handled after a singular Manner” and prides himself with the approval of the

“wise world” and the recognition from the “merry world”. He also claims that

this “singular” approach has taught the ignorant and “offended” the “malicious

part” (2005: 29). At first glance, claiming “singularity” seems to be Defoe’s way

to stress the originality of his work. According to the theologian George

Stubbes9, writing almost contemporaneously in 1721, singularity results from a

person’s willingness to rely on his or her own “observation” to an extent as to

reach an opinion that is not shared by anyone else. Stubbes considers “singular

knowledge” unreliable and calls it presumption to place any confidence in it (8-

9). It is inconceivable that Defoe is not aware of the double meaning of

9 Stubbes, George. A constant Search after Truth, the necessary Result of a Trust in

God: And a Neglect of a free uninterrupted Enquiry into Religion, the Effect of

Presumption. A Sermon Preach’d before the University of Oxford, December 21.

1721. With a Prefatory Epistle to the Vice-Chancellor. By George Stubbes. London:

Printed by W. Wilkins, and sold by J. Peele, 1722.


“singular” as either original or unreliable. After all, he might have used the word

“original” and he needn’t have repeated the word “singular”. In 1824, James

Hogg uses the word “singular” as a catchphrase in his marvellous tale of

demonic possession and strange doublings. In this context, “singular” designates

the sceptic nature of his narrator’s voice: “I have now the pleasure of presenting

my readers with an original document of a most singular nature, and preserved

for their perusal in a still more singular manner. I offer no remarks on it…

leaving every one to judge for himself” (The Private Memoirs and Confessions

of a Justified Sinner, 106). In Hogg’s tale, then, where the marvellous is held in

check by the rational, the word singular appeals to the reader’s appreciation of

the strangeness and improbability of the story. Likewise, Defoe’s usage of the

word suggests an ironic retreat from the supernatural subject matter and

especially from his own claim about the approval and recognition of the “world”.

In addition, it makes clear that History of the Devil is first of all a satire rather

than a treatise on the devil.

Defoe’s supernatural tracts may be read as practical application of the

scientific paradigms such as were available to him. He consistently historicizes

the phenomena he describes. If possible, he provides direct observation. If direct

observation is not possible, he collects stories of witnesses and assesses the

validity of those tales. The result is a mixture of formal historical treatise,

scriptural exegesis, meta-fictional commentary, as well as narrative sequences,

which include dialogues and relatively melodramatic incidents that qualify as

“wonderful” or “strange”. Thus, the supernatural tracts fit the bill of the satiric

form. Moreover, in a properly satiric attitude, the narrators of the tracts never tire

to point out the value of common sense and the ignorant superstitious credulity

of victims of frauds.

1.5 QUALIFYING THE “SUPERNATURAL”

Emile Durkheim defines the supernatural in order to approach the concept of the

religious, basically arguing that the two ideas are often confused but need to be

separated. Durkheim explains that “in order to think of the idea of the

supernatural it is not enough to witness unexpected events; these events must

also be perceived as impossible, that is, as irreconcilable with such an order as

appears to us, rightly or no, as the order of things” (50). Furthermore, Durkheim

notes that the idea of the supernatural is a fairly modern one and presupposes the

idea of nature. In his words,

INTRODUCTION | 21

religious concepts do not above all serve to explain and express what is the exception and

abnormality of the order of the world, but on the contrary what is continuous and regular.

To put it in basic terms: The gods serve much less to account for the monstrosities, the

extraordinary and the anomalies, but rather to account for the common course of the

universe, the movements of the stars, the rhythms of the seasons, the yearly growth of

plants and so on. It is not true then that the concept of the religious is the same as the

concepts of the extraordinary and the unforeseen. (50, my translation)

As a branch of physico-theology, supernaturalism – especially when dealing

with natural magic – actually tries to accommodate what is extraordinary or

anomalous into the frame of nature. It questions our perception of the order of

things.

With its interest in the particular case, it moreover challenges the validity of

universalist systems, in which the seemingly impossible gains undue

significance. The “extraordinary” and the “unforeseen” are the subject matter of

the supernaturalists, but ultimately, their aim must be to reconcile religion to

known cosmology. Similarly, in his fictions, Defoe chooses extraordinary

individuals to recount their adventures, but, with ideas of knowledge,

understanding and selfhood in mind, his protagonists in fact integrate the

unforeseen and strange into their experience in order to provide a conceivable

frame of shared identity.

By contrast, in his seminal study Religion and the Decline of Magic, Keith

Thomas argues that the social, economic and technological developments of the

late seventeenth century provided alternatives to a supernatural understanding of

the world. Misfortunes and natural disasters needed no longer be explained by

the presence of ghosts, magic or witchcraft. Furthermore, the loss of control

experienced in such circumstances could be alleviated by recourse to new

institutions such as insurances against damages (Thomas, 775-83). Thomas

points out, while contemporary theorists began to develop economic and social

theories, personal misfortunes seemed to fall into a different category, which is

one reason why beliefs in witchcraft persisted longer than popular magic (784).

One might stipulate that technological and scientific progress brought on the

decline of magic.

However, Thomas argues that the “in England magic lost its appeal before

the appropriate technical solutions had been devised to replace its place” (786).

Instead, the decline of magic should be “intellectual and religious factors”

(ibid.). The sphere of the magical is in contrast to both a conception of a rational

universe and to an empirical understanding of the nature of things. When the fear

of the unknown is really a fear of the unknowable – what we will never be able

to learn – it is in principle an experience of the sublime. In Journal of the Plague


Year, a moment of sublime experience is when he looks into the “great Pit”.

Considerable part of his indignation with the unbelievers is a result of his

confusion at their not sharing his experience. In their minds, the “pit” is a non-

phenomenon. But to him, it is a moment of sublime revelation.10

The fear of the unknown is at odds with the sense of certainty. The contrast

is a basic one. It can be traced through the opposition between amazement and

certainty, between feelings of speechlessness and the confidence of being able to

put an empirical measure and probability to all experiences. There is a “beyond

description”. And there is complication because there is the possibility of false

beliefs and even delusions in regard to empirical knowledge (empirical here

meaning accessible by our senses). Because of this possibility, the language of

amazement is found not just to describe the confrontation with the transcendent

unknowable, but also to describe more profane moments. What is called the

language of amazement is a description of emotive states of fear. Fear having a

concrete object, amazement is less focused. It might be likened to surprise:

Certainly, what makes the concepts of “amazement” and “surprise” conspicuous

is that they include both emotional and cognitive aspects. The failure of verbal

expression is accompanied by an emotionally blank moment, before joy or fear

can be felt. The emotional responses are initial immediate reactions. They are

not sophisticated or abstract feelings. Perhaps this has induced some of Defoe’s

audience to overlook the balanced nature of his representations of fear, which are

by no means limited to moments of paranoia, which is the form of fear most

readily quoted in regard to Roxana.

There are several outstanding studies of the religious dimension of Defoe’s

work. J. Paul Hunter’s The Reluctant Pilgrim as well as Leo Damrosch’s God’s

Plot and Man’s Story and G. A. Starr’s Defoe and Spiritual Autobiography trace

the significance of theological narrativity for Defoe’s work. Furthermore, two

studies, Rodney Baine’s Defoe and the Supernatural, and Katherine Clark’s

Daniel Defoe: The Whole Frame of Nature, Time and Providence, provide two

attempts to approach the religious dimension of Defoe’s work by offering a

holistic view of how Defoe dealt with religious material. Similarly, there are

excellent studies on the ethical, that is, the meta-moral, discourse in Defoe and

how the narrative characteristics of ethical argumentation come to bearing in

Defoe’s fiction. Notable among these studies are G. A. Starr’s Defoe and

Casuistry and Stuart Sim’s Negotiations with Paradox.

In addressing the religious dimension of Defoe’s work and in noting what

might be called a “historical reflex” in Defoe’s attitude toward his material (see

10 For a broader discussion of the social dimensions of the experience of the sublime in

A Journal of the Plague Year, see also Gary Hentzi (1993).

INTRODUCTION | 23

above), one detects that Defoe tries to understand the structure of religious

experience in his narrative rendering of it. In this, he is indebted to the

supernaturalists in that they present stories of individual experiences as

“evidence”. The isolated incident, told in terms of a story, usually embedded in

the frame of a larger narrative or tract, always moralised and assessed by the

frame narrator, takes the form of a parable or an exemplary story. Not only could

one argue that Defoe imitates the New Testament by using such a narrative

device, he also draws on the tradition of the fable, possibly also the oriental tale,

but certainly he is indebted to the supernatural material of the seventeenth

century. These parabolic episodes are by no means exclusively “supernatural”.

Still, whenever Defoe includes an isolated episode, his narrators usually offer a

reflection of the incident that tries to understand its content, which translates into

an epistemological exercise. When the episode indeed addresses a conception of

the supernatural, for example, Robinson’s dream, H.F.’s encounters with

apparition stories, Moll’s vision of hell, or Roxana’s storm experience, Defoe’s

appropriation of an epistemological attitude towards his material gives the reader

an insight into his awareness of the formation of beliefs and convictions.

Writers on the supernatural recite several stories of the Scriptures to support

their argument, especially since if there are apparitions, magic, devils and

witches in the Bible, they can be credited with scriptural authority, whether they

be good or bad. The Book of Daniel receives special attention, because Daniel

experienced visions and because the madness of Nebuchadnezzar and the vision

of Belshazzar are each quasi-archetypical examples of supernatural phenomena.

Historically and theologically speaking, the attention to prophetic texts can be

explained by the millenarianism present in 17th-century Protestant thinking

(Jacob 100-142). According to Margaret Jacob, the millenarianism of the new

scientists like Isaac Newton and latitudinarians like Henry More was less radical

than the millenarianism of the radical sects after the English Revolution. Rather,

it can be understood as part of the process of the consolidation of church and

state occurring after the Restoration (104f.). This shows the inverse relationship

between the texts on the supernatural and their theological contexts. The tracts

on the supernatural set out to provide evidence or at least conjectural legitimacy

to given beliefs, rather than try and create new theological content.

Having said that Defoe engages in an epistemology of beliefs, one can see

why rationality and justification form a recurrent theme in his work, both factual

and fictional. Not unusually for his time, Defoe is also aware that religious

beliefs may have political ramifications. It is not surprising, then, that he adopts

a line of reasoning that connects judgment, politics and moral standing. Max

Novak in his Defoe and the Nature of Man particularly highlights the political


dimension of personal and religious identities of the individual in Defoe’s work.

The current debate on Defoe’s concept of rationality focuses on Defoe’s

relationship to the main figures in philosophy and political sciences of his time.

In his study Defoe and the Supernatural (1968), Rodney Baine meticulously

traces Defoe’s writings on the supernatural and carefully argues Defoe’s

authorship of the single tracts and treatises that Baine discusses. Baine offers an

excellent overview of the supernatural topics that Defoe was interested in. He

historicizes Defoe’s writings and focuses on Defoe’s beliefs. While Baine points

out that Defoe voices repeated concern about the power of the imagination in the

sense of illusion and self-deception, and consequently stresses the “twin lights of

Revelation and Reason” (81), he does not treat the supernatural tracts from an

epistemological perspective. If implicitly present, the problem of the regress of

justification does not concern Baine.

Baine’s discussion of Defoe’s “prophecy” looks at Defoe’s use of a prophetic

narrating persona, which Defoe adopted already in the Review and then keeps

employing in later tracts (109-130).11 In this guise, Defoe speculates about

possible developments and presents conjectural prophecies about the future.

Baine clearly states that Defoe was aware of Jonathan Swift’s “Bickerstaff” of

1708,12 and that Defoe used the mask of the prophet, rather than made

predictions. In one case Defoe published a disclaimer that he had no supernatural

powers when his predictions turned out to be true (111). In the Review, as Baine

explains, as well as in Due Preparations for the Plague, Defoe indeed dares

make predictions about, to his mind, inevitable events, such as a new outbreak of

the plague. Moreover, Defoe prognosticates the demise of various monarchs on

the Continent (Baine 111-2, 116). As Baine argues, Defoe had a more serious

ulterior motive when he wrote such predictions, which was to warn of the “waste

and horror of war” (Baine, 118). Clearly, Defoe is writing in answer to the

market’s demand for almanacs and prophecies (cf. Capp, 1979). According to

Baine, Defoe tried to time his publications so as to give his predictions validity

(122ff.). Defoe’s use of the prophetic voice is pre-eminently political and not

spiritual, and Baine does not discuss whether or not Defoe reflected on the

possibility of Divine prescience.

11 Baine identifies The British Visions, or Isaac Bickerstaff’s Twelve Prophecies for the

Year 1711, The Highland Visions, ort he Scots New Prophecy, Declaring in Twelve

Visions what Strange Things shall Come to Pass in the Year 1712, The Second-

Sighted Highlander, or Predictions and Foretold Events, Especially about the Peace,

By the Famous Scots Highlander (1713), and The Second-Sighted Highlander, Being

Four Visions of the Eclypse (1715), which Baine thinks safe to attribute to Defoe.

12 Predictions for the Year 1708, by Isaac Bickerstaff.

INTRODUCTION | 25

Baine’s work on the supernatural in Defoe is in close chronological

proximity to Keith Thomas’s book, which argues for the decline of magic. Baine

and Thomas differ diametrically in their conception of religion in the early

Enlightenment. Katherine Clark is certainly correct in arguing that their

difference of understanding reflects the critical debate of the late 1960s and that

a reassessment of the religious paradigms in Defoe and indeed of Defoe’s time is

called for. Clark’s ambitious recent work Daniel Defoe: The Whole Frame of

Nature, Time and Providence of 2007 undertakes to broadly contextualize

Defoe’s voice and his favoured topics. Thus, Clark discusses some of Defoe’s

early work, his attitude towards Dissent, and heterodoxy, the relevance of the

political theories of Milton and Locke, the historical circumstances of the British

Union of 1707, the problem of credit, orthodoxy and family, Defoe’s historical

vision in the face of the economic and religious social developments in his

lifetime. Her discussions firstly of the relationship between meaning and credit

(97-102), and secondly of the significance of idolatry and Defoe’s attack on

Deism (196-208), are particularly interesting. As Clark’s book addresses

primarily the historical context of Defoe’s ideas, it provides a helpful point of

reference to this study. While Clark possibly underrates the degree to which

Defoe was influenced by the ideas he attacked, she fully recognizes the

polemical, religious and intellectual significance of Defoe’s engagement with

supernatural material. She does not dismiss his engagement as irrelevant nor

does she disqualify Defoe’s interest as arcane or esoteric. Such a dismissal

would surely stem from a misconception of his use of supernatural imagery in

his work.

Similarly, Lorraine Daston’s work on the intellectual histories of wonder and

magic and her discussion of the relevance of such ideas for the history of science

provide a reading of the topic and historical period that steers away from a

rationalistic bias against wonder while offering an extremely insightful

interpretation demonstrating the theoretical productivity of said ideas for

science.

Crucially, Defoe uses the form of the supernatural tract to comment on

problems of judgment, personal faith, reliability and knowledge. In this, he is not

alone. Indeed, it is difficult to understand the three above-mentioned tracts

outside the context of the supernaturalist debate. It appears that the supernatural

is never the sole subject matter but always relates to political, ethical and

epistemological problems. Moreover, since supernaturalism posits a world in

which supernatural forces are at work, spirits may be angelic or demonic. Hence,

it is the meta-discourse concerning problems of knowledge and problems of evil


that deserves our attention, especially when postulating the supernatural story as

a subgenre of fiction, as suggested by Michael McKeon (History of the Novel).

Michael McKeon’s History of the Novel moreover provides a key discussion

of the significance of the discourse on the supernatural for the theory of fiction.

If Max Novak observes Defoe’s general dislike of the fictional mode (cf. Novak,

1964), McKeon invites us to reconsider Defoe’s attitude towards fiction and

language from yet another angle. Turning to Defoe’s work on the supernatural

we will see that he appropriates the critique of Descartes’ sceptical method

typical for a supernaturalist and imagist like Joseph Glanvill. However, while the

response to scepticism fuels Defoe’s writing to a large extent, his use of

supernatural materials (i.e. tracts and treatises by seventeenth-century writers on

supernatural phenomena and natural magic) is historical in the sense that he

reflects on the critical activity of his predecessors and arrives at a position that

defends the basis of faith in reason and language, but also acknowledges the

sceptical and moral challenges.

1.6 SEEKING CERTAINTY OF SELF

Facing the possibility of supernatural events, one has two options. First, one can

accept their reality. Second, one denies the event and ascribes the experience to

hallucination or deception. Famously, Tzvetan Todorov points out that the

narration of the former belongs to the sphere of the marvellous, the narration of

the latter belongs to the sphere of the uncanny. The space in-between, Todorov

suggests, is the sphere of the fantastic, in which the observer has not yet been

able to achieve certainty about the sphere in which he or she is moving

(1975:25). In a sense, supernaturalism does not recognize such uncertainty. It

always treats the marvellous. Yet, there is always also the possibility of delusion.

Defoe’s fictional treatment of the supernatural either concerns the experience of

the demonic and the divine or it concerns the way in which judgment and

thought is structured and possibly led astray. His treatment always begs the

question of how our sense of reality and self can be disrupted.

Deception and delusion are major topics in the witchcraft debate. That both

alleged victim and alleged witch can be deceived or deluded is a key argument

of those who oppose the idea that there is witchcraft. On the other hand, most

accounts of demonic seduction are based on the idea of the Devil as trickster

who is capable to deceive his victims. The difference between deception and

delusion seems gradual rather than qualitative, and it does not cover the modern

distinction between error and insanity. Even though writers like Reginald Scot

INTRODUCTION | 27

and John Webster use the word “deluded” in the sense of “mad”, and although

they point out pathological madness as a reason why a witch may claim to have

supernatural powers, delusion is not necessarily the same as mad. It does not

always signify disease and pathology. In its most extreme form, mental disorder

does not at all exist as a category, so that a victim’s visions and delusions are

confirmed by witnesses even though those witnesses only see and hear the

victim, never the visions the victim claims to have. Yet, when someone like John

Webster who was a physician, speaks of madness as a loss of reason and

understanding he subsumes it under the general heading of melancholy (chap. V,

p. 93). Still, he argues that one cannot accept the statement of a person suffering

from delusions as reliable regardless of the question of pathology. In terms of

mental health and illness, even those opposing witchcraft allegations do not

under all circumstances claim that the claims to have suffered from diabolical

mischief or to have a witch’s powers are expressions of mental illness. Nor do

they, if they speak of such claims as delusions, consider them necessarily as

pathological. Therefore, within the witchcraft debate and generally within the

discourse on the supernatural, one should not consider madness or melancholy

and delusion, as well as delusion and deception as synonyms, even though they

each describe closely related states of mind.

Still, the arguments against folk beliefs, such as beliefs in magical

transformations and demonic possession, build on an entirely biological, natural

and physical conception of madness. They describe the physical effects of

possession on the body, which Roxana uses in inversion: she describes herself as

possessed in order to give expression to her physical state (278f.).

Nebuchadnezzar’s madness is possibly the best-known story about a man, a king

even, “transformed” into a beast. In order to dismiss the supernatural reading of

this story, John Webster’s reading of the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness

styles the episode as the result of a disease. Webster supplements his reading of

the story with several examples of madness taken from medical records. Thus he

describes how patients suffering from rabies went mad. Webster’s point is that

Nebuchadnezzar did not change into a beast, but imagined he was a beast. One

should not mistake the metaphor with the actual state of the patient. Rather,

Webster sees madness or melancholy, as he calls it, as a biological natural state,

for example induced by infection as in the case of rabies (Chap. V, pp. 85f., 90-

95).

In an analogous attempt at making human experience this-worldly, confusion

is a recurring theme in Defoe’s fictions. It may be that the protagonist cannot

interpret events, as in Robinson Crusoe, when he sees the footprint on the beach.

As J. Paul Hunter observes, Crusoe’s life is “disordered and confused”. His


behaviour is effectively “feverish” (1966: 171). Alternatively, confusion can be

the result of unpredictable developments, as in Roxana, when her daughter

introduces herself. Or else, it arises with inexplicable events, as when Moll

Flanders experiences an auditory hallucination. Confusion may also be the only

response in the face of an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt. In all these

cases, confusion, whether in the form of fear, awe, wonder, or terror, is above all

the expression of the failure of normal judgment. Judgment, reason and

communication fail.

In his Before Novels, Hunter memorably argues that Defoe’s novels show his

engagement with epistemology. Building on the traditions of the spiritual self-

exploratory autobiography the emergent novelistic form plays with experience

and interpretation. Hunter points out that the epistemological concern would

have been quite obvious to eighteenth-century readers who were familiar with

the “patterns and meanings” to be “discovered by the close observation of the

details of a life”. What is new, as Hunter so convincingly puts, is that stories are

not taken at face value and that the reliability of the narrator becomes the major

concern:

Instead of authority and certitude, therefore, first-person perspective offered a field for

speculation and sorting; to recount events as personal experience was to raise the

questions of meaning and significance that a diarist faced in reviewing his or her own life.

‘Face value’ was not a viable option for a diarist… or a first-person narrator of any kind at

the beginning of the eighteenth century. (45-6)

Defoe’s supernatural tracts shed light on a related approach to the same

epistemological anxiety about the reliability of judgment as Hunter attributes to

the autobiographical tradition.

According to Richard Holton’s account (2001), self-deception involves not

just deception by the self but also about the self. The crucial difference is that the

former is a question of control and the latter is a question of knowledge. When

dealing with deceptions by the self, the subject convinces himself or herself into

believing something that is not the case. When dealing with deceptions about the

self, the subject demonstrates a lack of understanding of himself or herself, and

thus makes errors of judgment. In these latter cases, the victim of self-deception

needs to ask how justified a belief is (cf. Holton 2001: 55). Speaking of self-

deception, one has to ask whether or not the issue at stake will affect self-

knowledge. Holton argues that self-deception always involves a lack of

knowledge about the self, which lack becomes apparent in hindsight (ibid.).

Following his argument, self-deception constitutes a form of ignorance; and as

he points out, “self-ignorance” was a phrase employed by seventeenth-century

INTRODUCTION | 29

writers but lost in usage since (2001: 54). On the other hand, according to the

more orthodox view, self-deception and ignorance of the self may be seen as a

lack of moral fortitude. Attempts at explaining self-deception then focus on the

question why such a lack of knowledge is possible (53).

Holton is right to point out that “wishful thinking, involving no mistake as to

the warrant for the belief, does not constitute self-deception” (55). Moreover, his

overall argument that self-deception is necessarily a mistake about the self is

crucial. As Holton suggests, this conceptualization of self-deception saves us

from the perplexities of explaining how the self manages to deceive itself (56).

Furthermore, Holton demonstrates that the general bias towards explaining self-

deception as “deception by the self” is rooted in the Christian tradition (66ff.).

From Paul, Augustine to Blaise Pascal and Richard Baxter, self-deception is a

lack of self-knowledge or a form of ignorance that involves a wilful act by the

self to deny what is evidently true about the individual in question. Self-

deception in the sense of “deceiving oneself” is, according to Holton, a way of

“explaining a mistake about the self” (68).

Confusion is surely a problem of interpretation. It is the inability to read the

signs. It is moreover a problem of judgment which requires that there be

someone else agreeing with the same. It is therefore an expression of isolation,

since certainty is only attained when there is someone else to share the judgment.

This is not only true of science (cf. Shapin), this is also true of Defoe’s fictional

heroes. Moll Flanders teams up with Mother Midnight and the gentleman-robber

Jemy. Roxana is never left by Amy (with one vital exception). Robinson finds

Friday who becomes a reflection of Robinson. Similarly, religion provides the

frame of reference to avoid confusion. Not only do Defoe’s fictions follow the

patterns of Puritan conversion and spiritual narratives, such as the spiritual

autobiography (as shown by Starr and Hunter), they also tell of moments where

the protagonist, unintentionally, encounters the supernatural. Crucially, such

encounters may fall outside the framework of religion. After all, the claim to

have been directly divinely inspired is considered heretical by the Puritans. It is

such experience that is sought by the Quakers. And while the Quakers feature in

Defoe’s fiction, they remain ambivalent figures. Having said that, one should say

that since the prophets of the Bible, the only natural response to an encounter

with the divine has been a deep disconcertion.

In Defoe’s work, we see a clear connection between the concept of

knowledge and certainty and the problem of testimony. In the supernatural tracts,

Defoe not only historicizes our concerns with science and religion, he also

presents us with anecdotal evidence that forces us to pose questions of

trustworthiness, credibility and truth. Moreover, by introducing us to the


discourse on the supernatural Defoe confronts the possibilities resulting from

supernatural entities, ranging from demonic to divine. While the supernatural

itself becomes “productive” in the fictions in the form of diabolic and divine

presence, which invades the individual space of the protagonists and leads to a

dialectic between the immanent and the transcendent, between the sublime and

the profane, between human and supernatural. Yet, in the fictions what really

matters is the human response to these possibilities, trust and doubt, amazement

and wonder, which takes us to the question whether certainty may be attained

and with this final turn the fictions disclose their theological subtext to the

reader.

In order to do justice to the concept of knowledge within Defoe’s work, one

has to acknowledge that possessing, understanding and imparting information

are cognitive activities, which preoccupy Defoe in all his writing. Furthermore,

Defoe is aware that one can bring about a new state of affairs by controlling the

flow of information. One may wonder then whether Defoe considers the

performative capacities of language to actively speak meaning into existence.

The answer is yes and no. On the one hand, Defoe’s concept of language relies

on a stable representational relationship between word and object. Meaning and

truth exist independently of their linguistic representation. On the other hand,

Defoe seems acutely aware of the manipulative and hence representational

abilities of language; this view obviously would account for a certain wariness of

fiction, which is detectable in his work. Hence, just as there is evident

knowledge, there is the possibility of delusion and deception. Defoe’s

remarkable treatment of the latter possibility shows that despite misgivings about

the manipulative properties of fiction, Defoe is apt to consciously explore what

can be done in discourse with the state of “as if”, which might be defined as a

positive version of delusion.

One might argue that Defoe’s curiosity about the purposes and uses of

apparently irrational cognitive behaviour stems from his work on the

supernatural discourse. The idea of foreknowledge figures large in his fiction.

While ridiculed by some and questioned by most contemporaries, foreknowledge

can be considered separately from its historical context in Biblical prophecy, or

contemporary astrology (cf. Capp, 1979). Defoe does not contradict the orthodox

religious view of the truth of Biblical prophecy. But he seems to play with the

idea of what it means to know beforehand, in sacred, but especially also in

profane ways. In rational terms, foreknowledge translates quite simply into

“planning for all eventualities”. Consider all options, and prepare for the most

viable one, anticipate all possible consequences and prepare to fend off the

worse. Such anticipation is an intellectual exercise. But it involves knowing and

INTRODUCTION | 31

owning all kinds of information. Moreover, it requires that you be aware of your

own bias and prejudice. Rational detachment to such a degree is difficult to

accomplish, but characters like H.F. in Journal of the Plague Year, and

Robinson Crusoe, practise such rationality with some success.

Foreknowledge has a different side to it. Apart from the questions of

rationality, it strongly evokes emotional responses. Anticipating danger, the

subject will suffer from anxiety. The narrations of Roxana, Moll, and H.F., as

well as Robinson, often play with expressions of fear and terror. As a kind of

counter-measure to address the anxiety, H.F. resorts to a type of magic in order

to find out more about the future. Magic is primarily about trying to bring about

a state of affair that will be more congenial, beneficial and productive to the

subject. It claims to manipulate surroundings to the will of its user. Such is the

concept of magic that Defoe refers to in A System of Magick. Defoe criticizes

and dismisses this view of magic, but it does not stop his fictional characters

from trying to “speak into being” a version of events that will benefit them.

Their control of information is much like a magic trick. Such ability does not

stop them from feeling what one might call “dissonance” when they look back

on their past decisions.

In order to debate how Defoe’s fictional protagonists come to terms with

uncertainty and fear, on the one hand, and how the narratives construct certainty,

the subsequent discussion proposes to look at Defoe’s supernaturalism from

three points of view. First, we will consider his tracts in their discursive context.

In particular, we will analyse how they deal with the singular nature of the

evidence given in the “supernatural” material. Second, we will discuss how

certain patterns of explanation function in the fictional narratives, which find a

more overt description in the supernatural tracts. Such transformations concern

patterns of anticipation and deliberation. Third, we will examine how images of

the supernatural expands Defoe’s emotional vocabulary.

1.7 CHAPTER OVERVIEW

The first chapter focuses on the problem of testimony in supernaturalism. Defoe

and his predecessors usually refer to stories told by witnesses or found in the

Bible. The narrative form of these “evidential stories” underlines the subjective

nature of the evidence. How to justify the status of such stories as evidence is the

basis of any supernaturalist debate. Defoe addresses this challenge, because he is

particularly absorbed with the narrative and dramatic potential of such stories.

The question is how to represent an extraordinary phenomenon with any degree


of credibility. Moreover, the insistence on the individual case emphasises the

singular nature of subjective experience, which is exploited in novelistic

narratives.

The subsequent chapter addresses the rationality of belief in supernaturalism.

To begin with, one can argue that scepticism on Defoe’s part takes the form of a

dubiety about the susceptibility of the human mind to suggestion. Yet, his view

of the imagination is not unconditionally dismissive. On the contrary, despite his

doubts about human judgment, he plays with the similarity between fiction and

the hypothetical. Still, in context of the supernatural tracts, the role of the

imagination in Defoe’s work does not easily allow us to separate it from its

enthusiastic and delusional manifestations. Furthermore, one might define fiction

as a kind of delusion or a form of deception. We have to ask what happens when

the discussion of the nature of fiction as a product of the imagination is

transported into the narratives and the supernatural tracts, where they no longer

serve to criticise writing but where the focus of attention is completely shifted.

Looking at imaginings, delusions and deceptions, this chapter continues the

discussion of bias and subjectivity.

The next chapter returns to the language of supernaturalism. In Robinson

Crusoe, Journal of the Plague Year, and Roxana, the narration of the

protagonists’ decisions and their emotions is close to the world of experience of

the supernatural tracts. With the bias of hindsight, the narrators try to account for

their decisions. They voice dissonance at their experience when they revisit past

conflictual events with the benefit of the two points of view of the remembered

young self, and the self present in the now. Consequently, looking back on their

lives, the protagonists tend to reinterpret their lives, in order to achieve a greater

coherence of their own experience. If prediction and prophecy can be

rediscovered in the language of knowledge as anticipation and probability, they

serve to establish a sense of continuity in the experience of conflict. Prophecy

provides the pattern to explain the plot of the protagonists’ lives. Moreover, as

they describe moments of decision and conflict, the language is informed by

expressions of emotion remarkably close to the emotions one expects in

encounters with the supernatural. Astonishment, surprise, awe, fear and terror

are surely not just the most frequent, but above all the best described emotions in

Defoe’s fictional narratives. This chapter, then, moves the discussion of

subjectivity from problems of cognition and rationality to questions of

experience and emotion.

The final chapter continues the discussion of subjectivity. Its focus, however,

is on the concepts of knowledge and deliberation. In order to do so, the chapter

explores how the form of the “evidential story” is used to construct knowledge.

INTRODUCTION | 33

Defoe embeds his stories in his tracts and fictions, so that they function as mis-

en-abimes. While reading episodic embedded stories as mis-en-abime is fruitful

to our understanding of Defoe’s narratives, the point here is that one has to pay

attention to the frames of the stories. Looking at the narrative form, one realizes

that knowledge is enacted as an exchange between dialogic partners. Somewhat

at odds with the idea of an extreme singular subjectivity, knowledge, as it is

presented in the tracts and in the fictions, depends on the interaction between

witness and reporter. The reporter, however, is not a direct participant in the

event. Defoe uses the frame of communication to construct the embedded stories

like theatrical scenes, and allows the frame to be manipulated in various ways,

which one can see when reading Journal of the Plague Year, Robinson Crusoe

and Roxana alongside each other. To return to the question of subjectivity, the

narrative fictions represent knowledge as subject to bias and individual

perspective. Equally, one can argue that Defoe exploits the idea of a community

of knowledge sharing and producing new insights. The representation of

knowledge in the fictions is thus a fair negotiation of the certainty of knowledge,

and of the necessity of deliberation. It bears a strong hesitation about the merits

of subjectivity.

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2017-01-31 14-47-41 --- Projekt: transcript.anzeigen ...From: Petra Schoenenberger Transformations of the Supernatural Problems of Representation in the Work of Daniel Defoe February