Lights on the Horizon: Part 5

St Elmo’s Fire

I boarded the Kings' ship; now in the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement; sometime I'd divide
And burn in many places; on the topmast
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly
Then meet and join. 

--The Tempest (Act I, Scene 2) 

Another of the strange phenomena that light up the darkness of our ordinary experience of nature is what is called St Elmo’s Fire.  Like the phosphorescence of various marine plants and animals, this glowing flash of light that, like a will o’the wisp or an ignis fatuus, seems to dance around the deck of ships, up the masts, and then elsewhere, seems to be completely natural.  It is as natural as the march gas and lightning balls that are found on land.  Because they always seemed to be bizarre virtually unnatural, and probably supernatural in one way or another, they caught the imagination of our ancestors. Our forebears sometimes believed they were dealing with spiritual entities, creatures or forces beyond our understanding.  Yet they also were taken to be more frightening than directly dangerous, perhaps omens or other signs of benevolent powers, rather than demonic displays.

As scientists slowly began to investigate these phenomena and confirmed their natural properties, having to do with electrical discharges, chemical processes and organic substances, the stories and songs about them faded from most people’s consciousness.  Occasionally, however, as the later sections of this essay will discuss, they began to be taken in new ways.  Instead of manifestations of spiritual powers or devilish exhibitions, some writers began to see in them metaphors of mental events.  The glowing lights, the flashes and glowing substances, and the spectral shapes could stand for the way the imagination itself worked or the mind’s creation and organization of ideas.