One of the most remarkable phenomena belonging to this branch of magic is the appearance of living or recently deceased persons to friends or supplicants. The peculiarity in this case consists in the constantly changing character of the appearance: the double—as it is called—is the vision of the dying man, which appears to others or to his own senses. The former class of cases was well known in antiquity, for Pythagoras already had, according to popular report, appeared to numerous friends before he died. Herodotus and Maximus Tyrius state both, that Aristæus sent his spirit into different lands to acquire knowledge, and Epimenides and Hernestinus, from Claromenæ, were popularly believed to be able to visit, when in a state of ecstasy, all distant countries, and to return at pleasure. St. Augustine, also, states ("Sermon," 123) that he, himself, had appeared to two persons who had known him only by reputation, and advised them to go toHippons in order to obtain their health there by the intercession of St. Stephen. They really went to the place and recovered from their disease. At another time his form appeared to a famous teacher of eloquence in Carthage and explained to him several most difficult passages in Cicero's writings (De cura pro mortuis, ch. ii). The saints of the Catholic church having possessed the gift of being in several places at once, apparently so very generally, that the miracle has lost its interest, except where peculiar circumstances seem to suggest the true explanation. Such was, for instance, the last-mentioned case, recited by St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei.l. 8. ch. 18). Præstantius requested a philosopher to solve to him some doubts, but received no answer. The following night, however, when Præstantius lay awake, troubled by his difficulties, he suddenly saw his learned friend standing by his bedside and heard from his lips all he desired to know. Upon meeting him next day, he inquired why he had been unwilling to explain the matter in the daytime, and thus caused himself the trouble of coming at midnight to his house. "I never came to your house," was the reply, "but I dreamt that I did." Here was very evidently a case of magic activity on the part of the philosopher, whose mind was, in his sleep, busily engaged in solving the propounded mystery and thus affected not himself only, but his absent friend likewise.
The story of Dr. Donne's vision is well known, and deserves all the more serious attention as his candorwas above suspicion, and his judgment held in the highest esteem. He formed part of an embassy sent to Henry IV. of France, and had been two days in Paris, thinking constantly and anxiously of his wife, whom he had left ill in London. Towards noon he suddenly fell into a kind of trance, and when he recovered his senses related to his friends that he had seen his beloved wife pass him twice, as she walked across the room, her hair dishevelled and her child dead in her arms. When she passed him the second time, she looked sadly into his face and then disappeared. His fears were aroused to such a degree by this vision that he immediately dispatched a special messenger to England, and twelve days later he received the afflicting news that on that day and at that hour his wife had, after great and protracted suffering, been delivered of a still-born infant (Beaumont, p. 96). In Macnish's excellent work on "Sleep," we find (p. 180) the following account: "A Mr. H. went one day, apparently in the enjoyment of full health, down the street, when he saw a friend of his, Mr. C., who was walking before him. He called his name aloud, but the latter pretended not to hear him, and steadily walked on. H. hastened his steps to overtake him, but his friend also hurried on, and thus remained at the same distance from him; thus the two walked for some time, till suddenly Mr. C. entered a gateway, and when Mr. H. was about to follow, slammed the door violently in his face. Perfectly amazed at such unusual conduct, Mr. H. opened the door andlooked down the long passage, upon which it opened, but saw no one. Determined to solve the mystery, he hurried to his friend's house, and there, to his great astonishment, learnt that Mr. C. had been confined to his bed for some days. It was not until several weeks later that the two friends met at the house of a common acquaintance; Mr. H. told Mr. C. of his adventure, and added laughingly, that having seen his double, he was afraid Mr. C. would not live long. These words were received by all with hearty laughter; but only a few days after this meeting the unfortunate friend was seized with a violent illness, to which he speedily succumbed." What is most remarkable, however, is that Mr. H. also followed him, quite unexpectedly, soon to the grave. Whatever may have been the nature of the event itself, it cannot be doubted that the minds of both friends were far more deeply impressed by its mysteriousness than they would probably have been willing to acknowledge to themselves, and that the nervous excitement thus produced brought out an illness lurking already in their system, and rendered it fatal. A very remarkable case was that of a distinguished diplomat, related by A. Moritz in his "Psychology." He was lying in bed, sleepless, when he noticed his pet dog becoming restless, and apparently disturbed to the utmost by a rustling and whisking about in the room, which he heard but could not explain. Suddenly a kind of white vapor rose by his bed-side, and gradually assumed the outline and eventhe features of his mother; he especially noticed a purple ribbon in her cap. He jumped out of bed and endeavored to embrace her, but she fled before him and as suddenly vanished, leaving a bright glare at the place where she had disappeared. It was found, afterwards, that at that hour—10 o'clockA. M.—the old lady had been ill unto death, lying still and almost breathless on her couch; she had felt the anguish of death in her heart, and had thought so anxiously of her son and her sister, that her first question when she recovered was, whether she had not perhaps been visited by the two persons who had thus occupied her whole mind. It was also ascertained that, contrary to a life's habit, she had on that day worn a purple ribbon in her night-cap. A German professor once succeeded in establishing the connection which undoubtedly exists between the will of certain persons and their appearance to others. He had only been married a year in 1823, when he was compelled to leave his wife and to undertake a long and perilous journey. Once, sitting in a peculiarly sad and dejected mood alone in a room of his hotel, he longed so ardently for the society of his wife, that he felt in his heart as if, by a great effort of will, he should be able to see her. He made the effort, and, behold! he saw her sitting at her work-table, busily engaged in sewing, and himself, as was his habit, on a low foot-stool by her side. She tried to conceal her work from his eyes. A few days later a messenger reached him, sent by his wife, whowas in great consternation and anxiety. On that day she also had suddenly seen her husband seated by her side, attentively watching her at work, and continuing there till her father entered the room, upon which the professor had instantly disappeared. When he returned to his house he made minute inquiries as to the work he had seen in the hands of his wife, and this was of such peculiar character as to exclude all ideas of a mere dream on his part. Here also the supreme will of the professor must have endowed him for the moment with exceptional powers, enabling him to make himself visible to his wife, while the latter, with the ardent love which bound her to her husband, was at the same moment sympathetically excited, and thus enabled to second his will, and to behold him as she was accustomed to see him most frequently.
Owen in his "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," reports fully a remarkable case here repeated only in outline. Robert Bruce, thirty years old, served as mate on board a merchant vessel on the line between Liverpool and St. John in New Brunswick. When the ship was near the banks he was one day about noon busy calculating the longitude, and thinking that the captain was in his cabin—the next to his own—he called out to him: How have you found it? Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the captain writing busily at his desk, and as he heard no answer, he went in and repeated his question. To his horror the man at the desk raised his head and revealed to him the faceof an entire stranger, who regarded him fixedly. In a state of great excitement he rushed to the upper deck, where he found the captain and told him what had occurred. Thereupon both went down; there was no one in the cabin, but on the captain's slate an unknown hand had written these words: Steer NW.! No effort was spared to solve the mystery; the whole vessel was searched from end to end, but no stranger was discovered; even the handwriting of every member of the crew was examined, but nothing found resembling in the least degree the mysterious warning. After some hesitation the captain decided, as nothing was likely to be lost by so doing, to obey the behest and ordered the helmsman to steer northwest. A few hours later they encountered the wreck of a vessel fastened to an iceberg, with a large crew and a number of passengers, in expectation of certain death. When the unfortunate men were brought back by the ship's boats, Bruce suddenly started in utter amazement, for in one of the saved men he recognized, by dress and features, the person he had seen at the captain's desk in the cabin. The stranger was requested to write down the words: Steer NW.! and when the words were compared with those still standing on the slate, they were identical! Upon inquiry it turned out that the shipwrecked man had at noon fallen into a deep sleep, during which he had seen a ship approaching to their rescue. When he had been waked half an hour later he had confidently assured his fellow-sufferers that they would be rescued, describing even the vessel that was to come to their assistance. Words cannot convey the amazement of the unfortunate men when they saw, a few hours afterwards, a ship bear down upon them, which bore all the marks predicted by their companion, and the latter assured Robert Bruce that everything on board the vessel appeared to him perfectly familiar.
Cases in which men have been seen at the same time at two different places are not less frequent, though here the explanation is much less easy. A French girl, Emilie Sagée, had even to pay a severe penalty for such a peculiarity: she was continually met with at various places at once, and as she could not give a satisfactory excuse for being at one place when her duties required her to be at another, she was suspected of sad misconduct. She lived as governess in a boarding-school in Livonia, and the girls of the institute saw her at the same time sitting among them and walking below in the garden by the side of a friend, and not unfrequently two Miss Sagées would be seen standing before the blackboard, looking exactly alike and performing the same motions, although one of them only wrote with chalk on the board. Once, while she was helping a friend to lace her dress behind, the latter looked into the mirror and to her horror saw two persons standing there, whereupon she fell down fainting. The poor French girl lost her place not less than nineteen times on account of her double existence (Owen, "Footfalls," etc., p. 348).
Occasionally this "double" appears to others at the same time that it is seen by the owner himself. Thus the Empress Elizabeth, of Russia, was seen by a Count O. and the Imperial Guards, seated in full regalia on her throne, in the throne-room, while she was lying fast asleep in her bed. The vision was so distinct, and the terror of the beholders so great, that the Empress was actually waked, and informed of what had happened, by her lady-in-waiting, who had herself seen the whole scene. The dauntless Empress did not hesitate for a moment; she dressed hastily and went to the throne-room; when the doors were thrown open, she saw herself, as the others had seen her; but so far from being terrified like her servants, she ordered the guard to fire at the apparition. When the smoke had passed away, the hall was empty—but the brave Empress died a few months latter (Bl. aus Prevost, V. p. 92). Jung Stilling mentions another striking illustration. A young lieutenant, full of health and in high spirits, returns home from a merry meeting with old friends. As he approaches the house in which he lives, he sees lights in his room and, to his great terror, himself in the act of being undressed by his servant; as he stands and gazes in speechless wonder, he sees himself walk to his bed and lie down. He remains for some time dumbfounded and standing motionless in the street, till at last a dull, heavy crash arouses him from his revery. He makes an effort, goes to the door and rings the bell; his servant, who opens the door, starts backfrightened, and wonders how he could have dressed so quickly and gone out, as he had but just helped him to undress. When they enter the bedroom, however, they are both still more amazed, for there they find a large part of the ceiling on the bed of the officer, which is broken to pieces by the heavy mortar that had fallen down. The young lieutenant saw in the warning a direct favor of Providence and lived henceforth so as to show his gratitude for this almost miraculous escape ("Jenseits," p. 105).
Not unfrequently the seeing of a "double" is the result of physical or mental disease. Persons suffering of catalepsy are especially prone to see their own forms mixing with strange persons, who people the room in which they are confined. Insanity, also, very often begins with the idea, that the patient's own image is constantly by his side, accompanying him like his shadow wherever he goes, and finally irritating him beyond endurance. In these cases there is, of course, nothing at work but a diseased imagination, and with the return of health the visions also disappear.
Perhaps the most important branch of this subject is the theory, cherished by all nations and in all ages, that the dying possess at the last moment and by a supreme effort, the mysterious power of making themselves perceptible to friends at a distance. We leave out, here also, the numerous instances told of saints, because they are generally claimed by the Catholic Church as miracles. One of the oldest well-authenticated cases of the kind, occurred at the court of Cosmo de' Medici, in 1499. In the brilliant circle of eminent men which the great merchant prince had gathered around him, two philosophers, Michael Mercatus, papal prothonotary, and Marsilius Ficinus were prominent by their vast erudition, their common devotion to Platonic philosophy, and the ardent friendship which bound them to each other. They had solemnly agreed that he who should die first, should convey to the other some information about the future state. Ficinus died first, and his friend, writing early in the morning near a window, suddenly heard a horseman dashing up to his house, checking his horse and crying out: "Michael! Michael! nothing is more true than what is said of the life to come!" Mercatus immediately opened the window and saw his bosom friend riding at full speed down the road, on his white horse, until he was out of sight. He returned, full of thought, to his studies; but wrote at once to inquire about his friend. In due time the answer came, that Ficinus had died in Florence at the very moment in which Mercatus had seen him in Rome. Our authority for this remarkable account is the Cardinal Baronius, who knew Mercatus and heard it from his own lips; but the dates which he mentions do not correspond with the annals of history. He places the event in the year 1491, but Michele de' Mercati was papal prothonotary under Sixtus V. (1585-90) and could, therefore, not have been the friend of Ficinus, the famous physician and theologian,who was one of Savonarola's most distinguished adherents.
Nor can we attach much weight to the old ballads of Roland, which recite in touching simplicity the anguish of Charlemagne, when he heard from afar the sound of his champion's horn imploring him to come to his assistance, although the two armies were at so great a distance from each other that when the Emperor at last reached the ill-fated valley of Ronceval, his heroic friend had been dead for some days. Calderon depicts in like manner, but with the peculiar coloring of the Spanish devotee, how the dying Eusebio calls his absent friend Alberto to his bedside, to hear his last confession, and how the latter, obeying the mysterious summons, hastens there to fulfil his solemn promise.
A well-known occurrence of this kind is reported by Cotton Mather as having taken place in New England. On May 2d, 1687, at 5 o'clockA. M., a young man, called Beacon, then living in Boston, suddenly saw his brother, whom he had left in London, standing before him in his usual costume, but with a bleeding wound in his forehead. He told him that he had been foully murdered by a reprobate, who would soon reach New England; at the same time he described minutely the appearance of his murderer, and implored his brother to avenge his death, promising him his assistance. Towards the end of June official information reached the colony that the young man had died on May 2d, at 5 o'clockA. M., from the effects of his wounds. But here, also,several inconsistencies diminish the value of the account. In the first place, the narrator has evidently forgotten the difference in time between London and Boston in America, or he has purposely falsified the report, in order to make it more impressive. Then the murderer never left his country; although he was tried for his crime, escaped the penalty of death by the aid of influential friends. It is, however, possible that he may have had the intention of seeking safety abroad at the time he committed the murder.
The apparition of the great Cardinal of Lorraine at the moment of death, is better authenticated. D'Aubigné tells us (Hist. Univer.1574, p. 719) that the queen Catherine of Medici, was retiring one day, at an earlier hour than usual, in the presence of the King of Navarre, the Archbishop of Lyons, and a number of eminent persons, when she suddenly hid her eyes under her hands and cried piteously for help. She made great efforts to point out to the bystanders the form of the Cardinal, whom she saw standing at the foot of her bed and offering her his hand. She exclaimed repeatedly: "Monsieur le Cardinal, I have nothing to do with you!" and was in a state of most fearful excitement. At last one of the courtiers had the wit to go to the Cardinal's house, and soon returned with the appalling news that the great man had died in that very hour. To this class of cases belongs also the well-known vision of Lord Lyttleton, who had been warned that he would die on a certain day, at midnight, and who did die at theappointed hour, although his friends had purposely advanced every clock and watch in the house by half an hour, and he himself had gone to bed with his mind relieved of all anxiety. Jarvis, in his "Accreditated Ghost Stories," p. 13, relates the following remarkable case: "When General Stuart was Governor of San Domingo, in the early part of our war of independence, he was one day anxiously awaiting a certain Major von Blomberg, who had been expected for some time. At last he determined to dictate to his secretary a dispatch to the Home Government on this subject, when steps were heard outside, and the major himself entered, desiring to confer with the Governor in private. He said: 'When you return to England, pray go into Dorsetshire to such and such a farm, where you will find my son, the fruit of a secret union with Lady Laing. Take care of the poor orphan. The woman who has reared him has the papers that establish his legitimacy; they are in a red morocco pocket-book. Open it and make the best use you can of the papers you will find. You will never see me again.' Thereupon the major walked away, but nobody else had seen him come or go, and nobody had opened the house for him. A few days later, news reached the island that the vessel on which Blomberg had taken passage, had foundered, and all hands had perished, at the very hour when the former had appeared to his friend the Governor. It became also known that the two friends had pledged each other, not only that the survivor should take care of the childrenof him who died first, but also that he should make an effort to appear to him if permitted to do so. The Governor found everything as it had been told him; he took charge of his friend's son, who became aprotégéof Queen Charlotte, when she heard the remarkable story, and was educated as a companion of the future George IV."
Lord Byron tells the following story of Captain Kidd. He was lying one night in his cabin asleep, when he suddenly felt oppressed by a heavy weight apparently resting on him; he opened his eyes, and by the feeble light of a small lamp he fancied he saw his brother, dressed in full uniform, and leaning across the bed. Under the impression that the whole is a mere idle delusion of his senses, he turns over and falls asleep once more. But the sense of oppression returns, and upon opening his eyes he sees the same image as before. Now he tries to seize it, and to his amazement touches something wet. This terrifies him, and he calls a brother officer, but when the latter enters, nothing is to be seen. After the lapse of several months Captain Kidd received information that in that same night his brother had been drowned in the Indian Sea. He himself told the story to Lord Byron, and the latter endorsed its accuracy (Monthly Rev., 1830, p. 229).
One of the most remarkable interviews of this kind, which continued for some time, and led to a prolonged and interesting conversation during which the threesenses of sight, hearing, and touch, were alike engaged, is that which a Mrs. Bargrave had on the 8th of September, 1805. According to an account given by Jarvis ("Accred. Ghost Stories," Lond., 1823), she was sitting in her house in Canterbury, in a state of great despondency, when a friend of hers, Miss Veal, who lived at Dover, and whom she had not seen for two years and a half, entered the room. The two ladies had formerly been very intimate, and found equal comfort, during a period of great sorrow, in reading together works treating of future life and similar subjects. Her friend wore a traveling suit, and the clocks were striking noon as she entered; Mrs. Bargrave wished to embrace her, but Miss Veal held a hand before her eyes, stating that she was unwell and drew back. She then added that she was on the point of making a long journey, and feeling an irresistible desire to see her friend once more, she had come to Canterbury. She sat down in an armchair and began a lengthened conversation, during which she begged her friend's pardon for having so long neglected her, and gradually turned to the subject which had been uppermost in Mrs. Bargrave's mind, the views entertained by various authors of the life after death. She attempted to console the latter, assuring her that "a moment of future bliss was ample compensation for all earthly sufferings," and that "if the eyes of our mind were as open as those of the body, we should see a number of higher beings ready for our protection." She declined,however, reading certain verses aloud at her friend's request, "because holding her head low gave her the headache." She frequently passed her hand over her face, but at last begged Mrs. Bargrave to write a letter to her brother, which surprised her friend very much, for in the letter she wished her brother to distribute certain rings and sums of money belonging to her among friends and kinsmen. At this time she appeared to be growing ill again, and Mrs. Bargrave moved close up to her in order to support her, in doing so she touched her dress and praised the materials, whereupon Miss Veal told her that it was recently made, but of a silk which had been cleaned. Then she inquired after Mrs. Bargrave's daughter, and the latter went to a neighboring house to fetch her; on her way back she saw Miss Veal at a distance in the street, which was full of people, as it happened to be market-day, but before she could overtake her, her friend had turned round a corner and disappeared.
Upon inquiry it appeared that Miss Veal, whom she had thus seen, whose dress she had touched, and with whom she had conversed for nearly two hours, had died the day before! When the question was discussed with the relatives of the deceased, it was found that she had communicated several secrets to her Canterbury friend. The fact that her dress was made of an old silk-stuff was known to but one person, who had done the cleaning and made the dress, which she recognized instantly from the description. She had also acknowledged toMrs. Bargrave her indebtedness to a Mr. Breton for an annual pension of ten pounds, a fact which had been utterly unknown during her lifetime.
In Germany a number of such cases are reported, and often by men whose names alone would give authority to their statements. Thus the philosopher Schopenhauer (Parerga, etc., I. p. 277) mentions a sick servant girl in Frankfort on the Main, who died one night at the Jewish hospital of the former Free City. Early the next morning her sister and her niece, who lived several miles from town, appeared at the gate of the institution to make inquiries about their kinswoman. Both, though living far apart, had seen her distinctly during the preceding night, and hence their anxiety. The famous writer E. M. Arndt, also, quotes a number of striking revelations which were in this manner made to a lady of his acquaintance. Thus he was once, in 1811, visiting the Island of Rügen, in the Baltic, and having been actively engaged all day, was sitting in an easy-chair, quietly nodding. Suddenly he sees his dear old aunt Sophie standing before him; on her face her well-known sweet smile, and in her arms her two little boys, whom he loved like his own. She was holding them out to him as if she wished to say by this gesture: "Take care of the little ones!" The next day his brother joined him and brought him the news that their aunt had died on the preceding evening at the hour when she had appeared to Arndt. Wieland, even, by no means given to credit easily accounts ofsupernatural occurrences, mentions in his "Euthanasia" a Protestant lady of his acquaintance, whose mind was frequently filled with extraordinary visions. She was a somnambulist, and subject to cataleptic attacks. A Benedictine monk, an old friend of the family, had been ordered to Bellinzona, in Switzerland, but his correspondence with his friends had never been interrupted for years. Years after his removal the above-mentioned lady was taken ill, and at once predicted the day and hour of her death. On the appointed day she was cheerful and perfectly composed; at a certain hour, however, she raised herself slightly on her couch, and said with a sweet smile, "Now it is time for me to go and say good-bye to Father C." She immediately fell asleep, then awoke again, spoke a few words, and died. At the same hour the monk was sitting in Bellinzona at his writing-table, a so-called pandora, a musical instrument, by his side. Suddenly he hears a noise like an explosion, and looking up startled, sees a white figure, in whom he at once recognizes his distant friend by her sweet smile. When he examined his instrument he found the sounding-board cracked, which, no doubt, had given rise to his hearing what he considered a "warning voice." The Rev. Mr. Oberlin, well-known and much revered in Germany, and by no means forgotten in our own country, where a prosperous college still bears his name, declares in his memoirs that he had for nine years constant intercourse with his deceased wife. He saw her for the first time after her death in broaddaylight and when he was wide awake; afterwards the conversations were carried on partly in the day and partly at night. Other people in the village in which he lived saw her as well as himself. Nor was it by the eye only that the pious, excellent man judged of her presence; frequently, when he extended his hand, he would feel his fingers gently pressed, as his wife had been in the habit of doing when she passed by him and would not stop. But there was much bitterness and sorrow also mixed up with the sweetness of these mysterious relations. The passionate attachment of husband and wife could ill brook the terrible barrier that separated them from each other, and often the latter would look so wretched and express her grief in such heartrending words that the poor minister was deeply afflicted. The impression produced on his mind was that her soul, forced for unknown reasons to remain for some time in an intermediate state, remained warmly attached to earthly friends and lamented the inability to confer with them after the manner of men. After nine years the husband's visions suddenly ended and he was informed in a dream that his wife had been admitted into a higher heaven, where she enjoyed the promised peace with her Saviour, but could no longer commune with mortal beings.
It is well known that even the great reformer, Martin Luther, knew of several similar cases, and in his "Table Talk" mentions more than one remarkable instance.
Another well-known and much discussed occurrence of this kind happened in the days of Mazarin, and created a great sensation in the highest circles at Paris. A marquis of Rambouillet and a marquis of Preci, intimate friends, had agreed to inform each other of their fate after death. The former was ordered to the army in Flanders, while the other remained in the capital. Here he was taken ill with a fever, several weeks after parting with his friend, and as he was one morning towards 6 o'clock lying in bed awake, the curtains were suddenly drawn aside, and his friend dressed as usual, booted and spurred, was standing before him. Overjoyed, he was about to embrace him, but his friend drew back and said that he had come only to keep his promise after having been killed in a skirmish the day before, and that Preci also would share his fate in the first combat in which he should be engaged. The latter thinks his friend is joking, jumps up and tries to seize him—but he feels nothing. The vision, however, is still there; Rambouillet even shows him the fatal wound in his thigh from which the blood seems still to be flowing. Then only he disappears and Preci remains utterly overcome; at last he summons his valet, rouses the whole house, and causes every room and every passage to be searched. No trace, however, is found, and the whole vision is attributed to his fever. But a few days later the mail arrives from Flanders, bringing the news that Rambouillet had really fallen in such a skirmish and died from a wound in the thigh;the prediction also was fulfilled, for Preci fell afterwards in his first fight near St. Antoine (Petaval,Causes Célèbres, xii. 269).
The parents of the well-known writer Schubert were exceptionally endowed with magic powers of this kind. The father once heard, as he thought in a dream, the voice of his aged mother, who called upon him to come and visit her in the distant town in which she lived, if he desired to see her once more before she died. He rejected the idea that this was more than a common dream; but soon he heard the voice repeating the warning. Now he jumped up and saw his mother standing before him, extending her hand and saying: "Christian Gottlob, farewell, and may God bless you; you will not see me again upon earth," and with these words she disappeared. Although no one had apprehended such a calamity, she had actually died at that hour, after expressing in her last moments a most anxious desire to see her son once more.
Tangible perceptions of persons dying at a distance are, of course, very rare. Still, more than one such case is authoritatively stated; among these, the following: A lawyer in Paris had returned home and walked, in order to reach his own bedroom, through that of his brother. To his great astonishment he saw the latter lying in his bed; received, however, no answer to his questions. Thereupon he walked up to the bed, touched his brother and found the body icy cold. Of a sudden the form vanished and the bed was empty. Atthat instant it flashed through his mind that he and his brother had promised each other that the one dying first should, if possible, give a sign to the survivor. When he recovered from the deep emotion caused by these thoughts, he left the room and as he opened the door he came across a number of men who bore the body of his brother, who had been killed by a fall from his horse (La Patrie, Sept. 22, 1857). The Count of Neuilly, also, was warned in a somewhat similar manner. He was at college and on the point of paying a visit to his paternal home, when a letter came telling him that his father was not quite well and that he had better postpone his visit a few days. Later letters from his mother mentioned nothing to cause him any uneasiness. But several days afterward, at one o'clock in the morning, he thought, apparently in a dream, that he saw a pale ghastly figure rise slowly at the lower end of his bed, extend both arms, embrace him and then sink slowly down again out of sight. He uttered heart-rending cries, and fell out of his bed, upsetting a chair and a table. When his tutor and a man-servant rushed into the room, they found him lying unconscious on the floor, covered with cold, clammy perspiration and strangely disfigured. As soon as he was restored to consciousness, he burst out into tears and assured them that his father had died and come to take leave of him. In vain did his friends try to calm his mind, he remained in a state of utter dejection. Three days later a letter came from his mother, bringing him the sadnews, that his father had died on that night and at the hour in which he had appeared by his bedside. The unfortunate Count could never entirely get rid of the overwhelming impression which this occurrence had made on his mind, and was, to the day of his death, firmly convinced of the reality of this meeting (Dix Années d' émigration.Paris, 1865).
We learn from such accounts that there prevails among all men, at all ages, a carefully repressed, but almost irresistible belief in supernatural occurrences, and in the close proximity of the spirit world. This belief is neither to be treated with ridicule nor to be objected to as unchristian, since it is an abiding witness that men entertain an ineradicable conviction of the immortality of the soul. No arguments can ever destroy in the minds of the vast majority of men this innate and intuitive faith. We may decline to believe with them the existence of supernatural agencies, as long as no experimental basis is offered; but we ought, at the same time, to be willing to modify our incredulity as soon as an accumulation of facts appear to justify us in so doing. Our age is so completely given up to materialism with its ceaseless hurry and worry, that we ought to hail with a sense of relief new powers which require examination, and which offer to our intellectual faculties an untrodden field of investigation, full of incidents refreshing to our weary mind, and promising rich additions to our store of knowledge.
It can hardly be denied that there is at least a possibility of the existence of a higher spiritual power within us, which, often slumbering and altogether unknown, or certainly unobserved during life, becomes suddenly free to act in the hour of death. This may be brought about by the fact that at that time the strength of the body is exhausted, and earthly wants no longer press upon us, while the spiritual part of our being, largely relieved of its bondage, becomes active in its own peculiar way, and thus acquires a power which we are disposed to call a magic power. This power is, of course, not used consciously, for consciousness presupposes the control over our senses, but it acts by intuitive impulse. Hence the wide difference existing between the so-called magic of charmers, enchanters, and conjurors, justly abhorred and strictly prohibited by divine laws, and the effects of such supreme efforts made by the soul, which depend upon involuntary action, and are never made subservient to wicked purposes.
The results of such exertions are generally impressions made apparently upon the eye or the ear; but it need not be said that what is seen or heard in such cases, is merely the effect of a deeply felt sensation in our soul which seeks an outward expression. If our innermost being is thus suddenly appealed to, as it were, by the spirit of a dying friend or companion, his image arises instantaneously before our mind's eye, and we fancy we see him in bodily form, or our memory recalls the familiar sounds by which his appearancewas wont to be accompanied. Dying musicians remind distant friends of their former relations by sweet sounds, and a sailor, wounded to death, appears in his uniform to relatives at home. The series of sights and sounds by which such intercourse is established, varies from the simplest and faintest vision to an apparently clear and distinct perception of well-known forms, and constitute feeble, hardly perceptible, sighs or sobs to words uttered aloud, or whole melodies clearly recited. If a living person, by such an unconscious but all-powerful effort of will, makes himself seen by others, we call the vision a "double," in German, a "Doppelgänger;" if he produces a state of dualism, such as has been mentioned before, and sees his own self in space before him, we speak of second sight.
Such efforts are, however, by no means strictly limited to the moment of dissolution, when soul and body are already in the act of parting. They occur also in living persons, but almost invariably only in diseased persons. The exceptions belong to the small number of men in whom great excitement from without, or a mysterious power of will, cause a state of ecstasy; they are, in common parlance, "beside themselves." In this condition, their soul is for the moment freed from the bondage in which it is held by its earthy companion, and such men become clairvoyants and prophets, or they are enabled actually to affect other men at a distance, in various ways. Thus it may very well be, that strange visions, the hearing of mysterious voices, and especially themost familiar phenomenon, second sight, are in reality nothing more than symptoms of a thoroughly diseased system, and this explains very simply the frequency with which death follows such mysterious occurrences.
Men have claimed—and proved to the satisfaction of more or less considerable numbers of friends—that they could at will cause a partial and momentary parting between their souls and their bodies. Here also antiquity is our first teacher, if we believe Pliny (Hist. Nat.vii. c. 52), Hermotimus could at his pleasure fall into a trance and then let his soul proceed from his body to distant places. Upon being aroused, he reported what he had seen and heard abroad, and his statements were, in every case, fully confirmed. Cardanus, also, could voluntarily throw himself into a state of apparent syncope, as he tells us in most graphic words (De Res. Var.v. iii. l. viii. c. 43). The first sensation of which he was always fully conscious, was a peculiar pain in the head, which gradually extended downward along the spine, and at last spread over the extremities—evidently a purely nervous process. Then he felt as if a "door was opened, and he himself was leaving his body," whereupon he not only saw persons at a distance, but noticed all that befell them, and recalled it after he had recovered from the trance. An old German Abbé Freitheim, of whose remarkable work onSteganographie(1621), unfortunately only a few sheets have been preserved, claims the power to commune with absent friends by the mere energy of his will. "I can," says he, "make known mythoughts to the initiated, at a distance of many hundred miles, without word, writing or cypher, by any messenger. The latter cannot betray me, for he knows nothing. If needs be, I can even dispense with the messenger. If my correspondent should be buried in the deepest dungeon I could still convey to him my thoughts as clearly, as fully, and as frequently as might be desirable, and all this, quite simply, without superstition, without the aid of spirits."
The famous Agrippa (De occulta philos., Lugduni, III. p. 13) quotes the former writer, and asserts that he also could, by mere effort of will, in a perfectly simple and natural manner convey his thoughts not to the initiated only, but to any one, even when his correspondent's present place of residence should be unknown. The most remarkable, and, at the same time, the best authenticated case of this kind, is that of a high German official mentioned in a scientific paper (Nasse. Zeitschrift für psychische Aerzte, 1820), and frequently copied into others. A Counsellor Wesermann claimed to be able to cause distant friends to dream of any subject he might choose. Whenever he awoke at night and made a determined effort to produce such an effect, he never failed, provided the nature of the desired dream was calculated to startle or deeply excite his friends. His power was tested in this manner. He engaged to cause a young officer, who was stationed at Aix-la-Chapelle, nearly fifty miles from his own home, to dream of ayoung lady who had died not long ago. It was eleven o'clock at night, but by some accident the lieutenant was not at home in bed, but at a friend's country-seat, discussing the French campaign. Suddenly the colonel, his host, and he himself see at the same time the door open, a lady enter, salute them sadly, and beckon them to follow her. The two officers rise and leave the room after her, but once out of doors, the figure disappears, and when they inquire of the sentinels standing guard outside, they are told that no one has entered. What made the matter more striking yet, was the fact that although both men had seen the door open, this could not really have been so, for the wood had sprung and the door creaked badly whenever it was opened. The same Wesermann could, in like manner, cause his friends to see his own person and to hear secrets which he seemed to whisper into their ears whenever he chose; but he admitted upon it that his will was not at all times equally strong, and that, hence, his efforts were not always equally successful. Cases of similar powers are very numerous. A very curious example was published in 1852, in a work on "Psychologic Studies" (Schlemmer, p. 59). The author, who was a police agent in the Prussian service, asserted that persons who apprehended being conducted to gaol with special anxiety, often made themselves known there in advance, announcing their arrival by knocks at the gates, opening of doors, or footsteps heard in the room set aside for examining new comers. One day, not thewriter only, but all the prisoners in the same building, and even the sentinel at the gate heard distinctly a great disturbance and the rattling of chains in a cell exclusively appropriated to murderers. The next day a criminal was brought who had expressed such horror of this gaol, and made such resistance to the officials who were to carry him there, that it had become necessary, after a great uproar, to chain him hands and feet. It is well known that the mother of the great statesman Canning at one time of her life suffered under most mysterious though harmless nightly visitations. Her circumstances were such that she readily accepted the offer of a dwelling which stood unoccupied, with the exception of the basement, in which a carpenter had his workshop. At nightfall he and his workmen left the house, carefully locking the door, but night after night, at twelve o'clock precisely, work began once more in the abandoned part of the house, as far as the ear could judge, and the noise made by planing and sawing, cutting and carving increased, till the fearless old lady slipt down in her stocking feet and opened the door. Instantly the noise was hushed, and she looked into the dark deserted room. But as soon as she returned to her chamber the work began anew, and continued for some time; nor was she the only one who heard it, but others, the owner of the house included, heard everything distinctly.
The following well-authenticated account of a posthumous appearance, is not without its ludicrous element. A court-preacher in one of the little Saxon Duchies, appeared once in bands and gowns before his sovereign, bowing most humbly and reverently. The duke asked what he desired, but received no answer except another deep reverence. A second question meets with the same reply, whereupon the divine leaves the room, descends the stairs and crosses the court-yard, while the prince, much surprised at his strange conduct, stands at a window and watches him till he reaches the gates. Then he sends a page after him to try and ascertain what was the matter with the old gentleman, but the page comes running back almost beside himself, and reports that the minister had died a short while before. The prince refuses to believe his report, and sends a high official, but the latter returns with the same report and this additional information: The dying man had asked for writing materials, in order to recommend his widow to his sovereign, but had hardly commenced writing the letter when death surprised him. The fragment was brought to the duke and convinced him that his faithful servant, unable to reach him by letter, and yet nervously anxious to approach him, had spiritually appeared to him in his most familiar costume (Daumer,Mystagog.I. p. 224).
Before we regret such statements or treat them with ridicule, it will be well to remember, that men endowed with an extraordinary power of controlling certain faculties of body and soul, are by no means rare, and that the difference between them and those last mentioned,consists only in the degree. We speak of the power of sight and limit it ordinarily to a certain distance—and yet a Hottentot, we are told, can perceive the head of a gazelle in the dry, uniform grass of an African plain, at the distance of a thousand yards! Many men cannot hear sounds in nature which are perfectly audible to others, while some persons hear even certain notes uttered by tiny insects, which escape altogether the average hearing of man. Patients under treatment by Baron Reichenbach, saw luminous objects and the appearance of lights hovering above ground, where neither he nor any of his friends could perceive anything but utter darkness, and the special gift with which some persons are endowed to feel, as it were, the presence of water and of metals below the surface, is well authenticated. Poor Caspar Hauser, bred in darkness and solitude, felt various and deep impressions upon his whole being during the first months of his free life, whenever he came in contact with plants, stones or metals. The latter sent a current through all his limbs; tobacco fields made him deadly sick, and the vicinity of a graveyard gave him violent pains in his chest. Persons who were introduced to him for the first time, sent a cold current through him; and when they possessed a specially powerful physique, they caused him abundant perspiration, and often even convulsions. The waves of sound he felt so much more acutely than others, that he always continued to hear them with delight, long after the last sound had passed away from the ears of others. It may be fairlypresumed that this extreme sensitiveness to outward impressions is originally possessed by all men, but becomes gradually dulled and dimmed by constant repetition; at the same time it may certainly be preserved in rare privileged cases, or it may come back again to the body in a diseased or disordered condition, and at the moment of dissolution.
Nor is the power occasionally granted to men to control their senses limited to these; even the spontaneous functions of the body are at times subject to the will of man. An Englishman, for instance, could at will modify the beating of his heart (Cheyne, "New Dis.," p. 307), and a German produced, like a veritable ruminant, the antiperistaltic motions of the stomach, whenever he chose (Blumenbach,Phys.§ 294). Other men have been known who could at any moment cause the familiar "goose-skin," or perspiration, to appear in any part of the body, and many persons can move not only the ears—a lost faculty according to Darwin—but even enlarge or contract the pupil of the eye, after the manner of cats and parrots. Even the circulation of the blood has been known, in a few rare cases, to have been subject to the will of men, and the great philosopher Kant did not hesitate to affirm, supported as he was by his own experience, that men could, if they were but resolute enough, master, by a mere effort of the will, not a few of their diseases.
A striking evidence of the comparative facility with which men thus exceptionally gifted, may be able toimitate certain magic phenomena, was once given by an excellent mimic, whomRicharddescribes in hisThéorie des Songes. He could change his features so completely that they assumed a deathlike appearance; his senses lost gradually their power of perception, and the vital spirit was seen to withdraw from the outer world. A slow, quivering motion passed through his whole system from the feet upward, as if he wished to rise from the ground. After a while all efforts of the body to remain upright proved fruitless; it looked as if life had actually begun to leave it already. At this moment he abandoned his deception and was so utterly exhausted that he heard and saw but with extreme difficulty.
In the face of these facts the possibility at least cannot be denied that certain specially endowed individuals may possess, in health or in disease, the power to perceive phenomena which appear all the more marvelous because they are beyond the reach of ordinary powers of perception.
In our own day superstition and wanton, or cunningly devised, imposture have been so largely mixed up with the subject, that a strong and very natural prejudice has gradually grown up against the belief in ghosts. Every strange appearance, every mysterious coincidence, that escaped the most superficial investigation, was forthwith called a ghost. History records, besides, numerous cases in which the credulity of great men has been played upon for purposes of policy and statecraft. When the German Emperor Joseph showed hisgreat fondness of Augustus of Saxony—afterwards king of Poland—his Austrian counsellors became alarmed at the possible influence of such intimacy of their sovereign with a Protestant prince, and determined to break it off. Night after night, therefore, a fearful vision arose before the German emperor, rattling its chains and accusing the young prince of grievous heresy. Augustus, however, known already at that time for his gigantic strength, asked Joseph's permission to sleep in his room; when the ghost appeared as usual, the young prince sprang upon him, and feeling his flesh and blood, threw him bodily out of a window of the second story into a deep fosse. The unfortunate king of Prussia, Frederick William II., fell soon after his ascension of the throne into the hands of designing men, who determined to profit by his great kindness of heart and his tendency to mysticism, and began to work upon him by supernatural apparitions. One of the most cunningly devised impostures of the kind was practised upon King Gustavus III. of Sweden by ambitious noblemen of his court.
The scene was the ancient Lofoe church in Drotingholm, a favorite residence of former Swedish monarchs. The king's physician, Iven Hedin, learnt accidentally from the sexton that his master had been spending several nights in the building, in company with a few of his courtiers. Alarmed by this information he persuaded the sexton to let him watch the proceedings from a secret place in the old steeple of thechurch. An opportunity came in the month of August, 1782, and he had scarcely taken possession of his post when two of the royal secretaries came in, closed the door, and arranged a curious contrivance in the body of the building. To his great surprise and amusement the doctor saw them fasten some horse-hairs to the heavy chandeliers suspended from the lofty ceiling, and then pin to them masks sewed on to white floating garments. Finally large quantities of incense were scattered on the floor and set on fire, while all lights, save a few thin candles, were extinguished. Then the king was ushered in with five of his courtiers, made to assume a peculiar, very irksome position, and all were asked to hold naked swords upon each other's breasts. Thereupon the first comer murmured certain formulas of conjuration, and performed some ceremonies, when his companion slowly drew up one of the masks. It was fashioned to resemble the great Gustavus Adolphus, and in the dimly-lighted church, filled with dense smoke, it looked to all intents and purposes like a ghost arising from the vaults underneath. It disappeared as slowly into the darkness above, and was immediately followed by another mask representing Adolphus Frederick, and even the physician, who knew the secret, could not repress a shudder, so admirably was the whole contrived. Then followed a few flashes of lightning, during which the horse-hairs were removed, lights were brought in, and the king, deeply moved and shedding silent tears, escorted from thebuilding. The faithful physician watched his opportunity, and when a favorable hour appeared, revealed the secret to his master, and thus, fortunately for Sweden, defeated a very dangerous and most skillfully-conducted conspiracy.
Even ventriloquism has lent its aid to many an historical imposture, as in the case of Francis I. of France, whose valet, Louis of Brabant, possessed great skill in that art, and used it unsparingly for his own benefit and to the advantage of courtiers who employed him for political purposes. He even persuaded the mother of a beautiful and wealthy young lady to give him her daughter's hand by imitating the voice of her former husband, and commanding her to do so in order to release him from purgatory!
We fear that to this class of ghostly appearances must also be counted the almost historical White Lady of the Margraves of Brandenburg.
Report says that she represents a Countess Kunigunde of Orlamünde, who lived in the fourteenth century and killed her two children, for which crime she was executed by order of a Burggrave of Nuremberg. History, however, knows nothing of such an event, and the White Lady does not appear till 1486, when she is first seen in the old palace at Baireuth. This was nothing but a trick of the courtiers; whenever they desired to leave the dismal town and the uncomfortable building, one of the court ladies personated the ghost, and occasionally, even two white ladies were seen at thesame time. In 1540 the ghost met with a tragic fate; it had appeared several times in the castle of Margrave Albert the warrior, and irritated the prince to such a degree that he at last seized it one night and hurled it headlong down the long staircase. The morning dawn revealed his chancellor, Christopher Strass, who had betrayed his master and now paid with a broken neck for his bold imposture. After this catastrophe the White Lady was not seen for nearly a hundred years, when she suddenly reappeared in Baireuth. In the year 1677 the then reigning Margrave of Brandenburg found her one day sitting in his own chair and was terrified; the next day he rode out, fell from his horse, and was instantly killed. From this time the White Lady became a part of the history of the house of Brandenburg, accompanying the princes to Berlin and making it her duty to forewarn the illustrious family of any impending calamity. King Frederick I. saw her distinctly, but other sovereigns discerned only a vague outline and now and then the nose and eyes, while all the rest was closely veiled. In the old palace at Baireuth there exist to this day two portraits of the White Lady, one in white, as she appeared of old, and very beautiful, the other in black satin, with her hair powdered and dressed after more modern fashion—there is no likeness between the two faces. The ghost was evidently a good patriot, for she disturbed French officers who were quartered there, in the new palace as well as in the old, and as late as 1806 thoroughly frightened a number of generals whohad laughed at the credulity of the Germans. In 1809 General d'Espagne roused his aides in the depth of night by fearful cries, and when they rushed in he was found lying in the centre of the room, under the bedstead. He told them that the White Lady, in a costume of black and white, resembling one of the portraits, had appeared and threatened to strangle him; in the struggle she had dragged the bedstead to the middle of the room and there upset it. The room was thoroughly searched at his command, the hangings removed from the walls, and the whole floor taken up, but no trace was found of any opening through which a person might have entered; the doors had been guarded by sentinels. The general left the place immediately, looking upon the vision as a warning of impending evil, and, sure enough, a few days later he found his death upon the battle-field of Aspern. Even the great Napoleon, whose superstition was generally thought to be confined to his faith in his "star," would not lodge in the rooms haunted by the White Lady, and when he reached Baireuth in 1812, a suite of rooms was prepared for him in another wing of the palace. It was, however, noticed that even there his night's rest must have been interrupted, for on the next morning he was remarkably nervous and out of humor, murmuring repeatedly "Ce maudit château," and declaring that he would never again stay at the place. When he returned to that neighborhood in 1813, he refused to occupy the rooms that had been prepared for him, and continuedhis journey far into the night, rather than remain at Baireuth. The town was, however, forever relieved of its ill-fame after 1822. It is not without interest that in the same year the steward of the royal palace died, and report says in his rooms were found a number of curiosities apparently connected with the White Lady's costume; if this be so, his ardent patriotism and fierce hatred of the French might well furnish a cue to some of the more recent apparitions. The White Lady continued to appear in Berlin, and the terror she created was not even allayed by repeated discoveries of most absurd efforts at imposture. Once she turned out to be a white towel agitated by a strong draught between two windows; at another time it was a kitchen-maid on an errand of love, and a third time an old cook taking an airing in the deserted rooms. She appeared once more in the month of February, 1820, announcing, as many believed, the death of the reigning monarch, which took place in June; and quite recently (1872) similar warning was given shortly before the emperor's brother, Prince Albrecht, died in his palace.
White ladies are, however, by no means an exclusive privilege of the house of Brandenburg; Scotland has its ancient legends, skillfully used in novel, poem and opera, and Italy boasts of a Donna Bianca, at Colalta, in the Marca Trivigiana, of whom Byron spoke as if he had never doubted her existence. Ireland has in like manner the Banshee, who warns with her plaintive voice the descendants of certain old families, whenevera great calamity threatens one of the members. Curiously enough she clings to these once powerful but now often wretchedly poor families, as if pride of descent and attachment to old splendor prevailed even in the realms of magic.
Historical ghosts play, nevertheless, a prominent part in all countries. Lilly, Baxter and Clarendon, all relate the remarkable warnings which preceded the murder of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. In this case the warning was given not to the threatened man, but to an old and faithful friend, who had already been intimate with the duke's father. He saw the latter appear to him several nights in succession, urging him to go to the duke, and after revealing to him certain peculiar circumstances, to warn him against the plots of his enemies, who threatened his life. Parker was afraid to appear ridiculous and delayed giving the warning. But the ghost left him no peace, and at last, in order to decide him, revealed to him a secret only known to himself and his ill-fated son. The latter, when his old friend at last summoned courage to deliver the mysterious message, was at first inclined to laugh at the warning; but when Parker mentioned the father's secret, he turned pale and declared only the Evil One could have entrusted it to mortal man. Nevertheless, he took no steps to rid himself of his traitorous friend and continued his sad life as before. The father's ghost thereupon appeared once more to Parker, with deep sadness in his features and holding a knife in his hand, with which, he said, his unfortunate son would be murdered. Parker, whose own impending death had been predicted at the same time, once more waited upon the great duke, but again in vain; he was rudely sent back and requested not to trouble the favorite's peace any more by his foolish dreams. A few days afterwards Lieutenant Felton assassinated the duke with precisely such a knife as Parker had seen in his visions.
A similar occurrence is related of the famous Duchess of Mazarin, the favorite of Charles II., and Madame de Beauclair, who stood in the same relation to James II. The two ladies, who were bosom friends, had pledged their word to each other, that she who died first should appear to the survivor and inform her of the nature of the future state. The duchess died; but as no message came from her, her friend denied stoutly and persistently the immortality of the soul. But many years later, when the promise was long forgotten, the duchess suddenly was seen one night, gliding softly through the room and looking sweetly at her friend, whispering to her: "Beauclair, between twelve and one o'clock to-night you will be near me." The poor lady died at the appointed hour (Nork. "Existence of Spirits," p. 260). Less well-authenticated is the account of a warning given to King George I. shortly before his death, although it was generally believed throughout England at the time it occurred. The report was that the Queen, Sophia, repeatedly showed herself to herhusband, beseeching him to break off his intercourse with his beautiful friend, Lady Horatia. As these requests availed nothing, and the monarch refused even to believe in the reality of her appearance, she at last tied a knot in a lace collar, declaring that "if mortal fingers could untie the knot, the king and Lady Horatia might laugh at her words." The fair lady tried her best to undo it, but giving it up in despair, she threw the collar into the fire; the king, highly excited, snatched the lace from the burning coals, but in so doing, touched with it the light gauze dress of his companion. In her terror she ran with great swiftness through room after room, thus fanning the flames into a blaze, and perished amid excruciating pains. The king, it is well known, died only two months later.
A case which created a very great sensation at the time when it happened, and became generally known through the admirable manner in which it was narrated by the eloquent Bernardin de St. Pierre (Journal de Trévoux, vol. viii.), was that of the priest Bezuel. When a young man of 15, and at college, he contracted an intimate friendship with the son of a royal official, called Desfontaines. The two friends often spoke of future life, and when parted in 1696, they signed with their blood a solemn compact, in which they agreed that the first who died should appear after death to the survivor. They wrote to each other constantly, and frequently alluded in their letters to the agreement. A year aftertheir parting, Bezuel happened to be, one day, in the fields, delivering a message to some workmen, when he suddenly fell down fainting. As he was in perfect health, he knew not what to think of this accident, but when it occurred a second and a third time, at the same hour, on the two following days, he became seriously uneasy. On the last occasion, however, he fell into a trance, in which he saw nothing around him, but beheld his friend Desfontaines, who seized him by the arm and led him some thirty yards aside. The workmen saw him go there, as if obeying a guardian hand, and converse with an unseen person for three quarters of an hour. The young man heard here from his friend's lips, that he had been drowned while bathing in the river Orne on the day and at the hour when Bezuel had had his first fainting fit, that a companion had endeavored to save him, but when seized by the foot by the drowning man, had kicked him on the chest, and thus caused him to sink to the bottom. Bezuel inquired after all the details and received full answers, but none to questions about the future life; nevertheless, the apparition continued to speak fluently but calmly, and requested Bezuel to make certain communications to his kinsmen, and to repeat the "seven penitential psalms," which he ought to have said himself as a penance. It also mentioned the work in which Desfontaines had been engaged up to the day of his death, and some names which he had cut in the bark of a tree near the town in which he lived. Then it disappeared. Bezuel was not able tocarry out his friend's wishes, although the arm by which he had been seized, reminded him daily of his duty by a severe pain; after a month, the drowned man appeared twice more, urging his requests, and saying each time at the end of the interview, "bis, bis," just as he had been accustomed to do when in life. At last the young priest found the means to do his friend's bidding; the pain in the arm ceased instantly and his health remained perfect to the end of his life. When he reached Caen where Desfontaines had perished, he found everything precisely as he had been told in his visions, and two years afterwards he discovered by chance even the tree with the names cut in the bark. The amiable Abbé de St. Pierre does his best to explain the whole occurrence as a natural series of very simple accidents; there can be, however, no doubt of the exceptionable character of the leading features of the event, and the priest, from whose own account the facts are derived, must evidently in his trance have been endowed with powers of clairvoyance.
In the first part of this century a book appeared in Germany which led to a very general and rather violent discussion of the whole subject. It was written by a Dr. Woetzel, whose mind had, no doubt, been long engaged in trying to solve mysteries like that of the future life, since he had early come in contact with strange phenomena. The father of a dear friend of his having fainted in consequence of receiving a serious wound, was very indignant at being roused from thestate of perfect bliss which he had enjoyed during the time. He affirmed that in the short interval he had visited his brother in Berlin, whom he found sitting in a bower under a large linden-tree, surrounded by his family and a few friends, and engaged in drinking coffee. Upon entering the garden, his brother had risen, advanced towards him and asked him what had brought him so unexpectedly to Berlin. A few days after the fainting-fit a letter arrived from that city, inquiring what could have happened on that day and at that hour, and reciting all that the old gentleman had reported as having been done during his unconsciousness! Nor had the latter been seen by his brother only, but quite as distinctly by the whole company present; his image had, however, vanished again as soon as his brother had attempted to touch him (Woetzel, p. 215). From his work we learn that he had begged his wife on her death-bed to appear to him after death, and she had promised to do so; but soon after her mind became so uneasy about the probable effects of her pledge, that her husband released her, and abandoned all thoughts on the subject. Several weeks later he was sitting in a locked room, when suddenly a heavy draught of air rushed through it, the light was nearly blown out, a small window in an alcove sounded as if it were opened, and in an instant the faint luminous form of his wife was standing before the amazed widower. She said in a soft, scarcely audible voice: "Charles, I am immortal; we shall see each otheragain." Woetzel jumped up and tried to seize the form, but it vanished like thin mist, and he felt a strong electric shock. He saw the same vision and heard the same words repeatedly; his wife appeared as he had last seen her lying in her coffin; the second time a dog, who had been often petted by her, wagged his tail and walked caressingly around the apparition. The book, which appeared in 1804, and gave a full account of all the phenomena, met with much opposition and contempt; a number of works were written against it, Wieland ridiculed it in his "Euthanasia," and others denounced it as a mere repetition of former statements. The author was, however, not abashed by the storm he had raised; he offered to swear to the truth of all he had stated before the Great Council of the University of Leipzig, and published a second work in which he developed his theory of ghosts with great ability. According to his view, the spirits of the departed are for some time after death surrounded by a luminous essence, which may, under peculiarly favorable circumstances, become visible to human eyes, but which, according to the weakness of our mind, is generally transformed by the imagination only into the more familiar form of deceased friends. He insists, besides, upon it that all he saw and heard was an impression made upon the outer senses only, and that nothing in the whole occurrence originated in his inner consciousness. As there was nothing to be gained for him by his persistent assertions, it seemsbut fair to give them all the weight they may deserve, till the whole subject is more fully understood.
Another remarkable case is that of a Mr. and Mrs. James, at whose house the Rev. Mr. Mills, a Methodist preacher, was usually entertained when his duties brought him to their place of residence. One year he found they had both died since his last visit, but he staid with the orphaned children, and retired to the same room which he had always occupied. The adjoining room was the former chamber of the aged couple, and here he began soon to hear a whispering and moving about, just as he used to hear it when they were still alive. This recalled to him the reports he had heard in the town, that the departed had been frequently seen by their numerous friends and kinsmen. The next day he called upon a plain but very pious woman, who urged him to share her simple meal with her; he consented, but what was his amazement when she said to him at the close of the meal: "Now, Mr. Mills, I have a favor to ask of you. I want you to preach my funeral sermon next Sunday. I am going to die next Friday at three o'clock." When the astonished minister asked her to explain the strange request, she replied that Mr. and Mrs. James had come to her to tell her that they were ineffably happy, but still bound by certain ties to the world below. They had added that they had not died, as people believed, without disposing of their property, but that, in order to avoid dissensions among their children, they had beenallowed to return and to make the place known where the will was concealed. They had tried to confer with Mr. Mills, but his timidity had prevented it; now they had come to her, as the minister was going to dine that day at her house. Finally they had informed her of her approaching death on the day she had mentioned. The Methodist minister looked, aided by the heirs and a legal man, for the will and found it at the place indicated. Nanny, the poor woman, died on Friday, and her funeral sermon was preached by him on the following Sunday (Rechenberg, p. 182).
A certain Dr. T. Van Velseu published in 1870, in Dutch, a work, calledChristus Redivivus, in which he relates a number of very remarkable appearances of deceased persons, and among these the following: "A friend of the author's, a man of sound, practical mind, and a declared enemy of all superstition, lost his mother whom he had most assiduously nursed for six weeks and who died in full faith in her Redeemer. A few days later his nephew was to be married in a distant province, but although no near kinsman of his, except his mother, could be present, he, the uncle, could not make up his mind so soon after his grievous loss, to attend a wedding. This decision irritated and wounded his sister deeply and led to warm discussions, in which other relatives also took her side, and which threatened to cause a serious breach in the family. The mourner was deeply afflicted by the scene and at night, having laid the matter before God, he fell asleep with thethought on his mind: 'What would your mother think of it?' Suddenly, while yet wide awake, he heard a voice saying: 'Go!' Although he recognized the voice instantly, he thought it might be his sister's and drew the bed-curtain aside, to see who was there. To his amazement he saw his mother's form standing by his bedside; terrified and bewildered he dropped the curtain, turned his face to the wall and tried to collect his thoughts, but at the same time he heard the same voice say once more: 'Go!' He drew the curtain again and saw his mother as before, looking at him with deep love and gentle urgency. This excites him so that he can control himself no longer; he jumps up and tries to seize the form—it draws back and gradually dissolves before his eye. Now only he recalls how often he has conversed with his mother about the future life and the possibility of communication after death; he becomes calm, decides to attend the wedding and sleeps soundly till the morning. The next day he finds his heart relieved of a sore burden; he joins his friends at the wedding and finds, to his infinite delight, that by his presence only a serious difficulty is avoided and peace is preserved in a numerous and influential family. In this case the effect of the mind on the imagination is strikingly illustrated, and although the vision of the mother may have existed purely in the son's mind, the practical result was precisely the same as if a spirit had really appeared in tangible shape so as to be seen by the outward eye."