5 (Return)Quoted from a remarkable work by James Gillingham, surgical mechanist, Chard, Somerset. Mr. Gillingham sent me the name of the doctor, and assures me that the narrative is quite authentic.
Speaking Doubles.
While discussing the subject, some friends called at Mowbray House, and were, as usual, asked to pay toll in the shape of communicating any experience they had had of the so-called supernatural. One of my visitors gave me the following narrative, the details of which are in the possession of the Psychical Research Society:—
"Some years ago my father and another son were crossing the Channel at night. My mother, who was living in England, was roused up in the middle of the night by the apparition of my father. She declares that she saw him quite distinctly standing by her bedside, looking anxious and distraught. Knowing that at that moment he was in mid-Channel, she augured that some disaster had overtaken him or the boy. She said, 'Is there some trouble?' He said, 'There is; the boy——' and then he faded from her sight. The curious part of the story is that my father at that very time had been thinking on board the steamer of having to tell his wife of the loss of the boy. The lad had been missed, and for a short time father feared he had fallen overboard. Shortly afterwards he was discovered to be quite safe. But during the period of suspense father was vividly conscious of the pain of having to break the news to his wife. It was subsequently proved by a comparison of the hour that his double had not only appeared but had spoken at the very moment he was thinking of how to tell her the news midway between France and England."
Another case in which the double appeared was that of Dr. F. R. Lees, the well-known temperance controversialist. On communicating with the Doctor, the following is his reply:—
"The little story or incident of which you have heard occurred above thirty years ago, and may be related in very few words. Whether it was coincidence, or transference of vivid thought, I leave to the judgment of others.
"I had left Leeds for the Isle of Jersey (though my dear wife was only just recovering from a nervous fever) to fulfil an important engagement. On a Good Friday, myself and a party of friends in several carriages drove round a large portion of the island, coming back to St. Heliers from Bouley Bay, taking tea about seven o'clock at Captain ——'s villa. The party broke up about ten o'clock, and the weather being fine and warm, I walked to the house of a banker who entertained me. Naturally, my evening thoughts reverted to my home, and after reading a few verses in my Testament, I walked about the room until nearly eleven, thinking of my wife, and breathing the prayer, 'God bless you.'
"I might not have recalled all the circumstances, save for the letter I received by the next post from her, with the query put in: 'Tell me what you weredoing within a few minutes of eleven o'clockon Friday evening? I will tell you in my next why I ask; for something happened to me.' In the middle of the week the letter came, and these words in it:—'I had just awoke from a slight repose, when I saw you in your night-dress bend over me, and utter the words, "God bless you!" I seemed also to feel your breath as you kissed me. I felt no alarm, but comforted, went off into a gentle sleep, and have been better ever since.' I replied that this was an exact representation of my mind and words."
Here there was apparently the instantaneous reproduction in Leeds of the image, and not only of the image but of the words spoken in Jersey, a hundred miles away. The theory that the phantasmal body is occasionally detachable from the material frame accounts for this in a fashion, and that is more than can be said for any other hypothesis that has yet been stated. In neither of these cases did an early death follow the apparition of the dual body.
An Unknown Double Identified.
Neither of these stories, however, is so wonderful as the following narrative, which is forwarded to me by a correspondent in North Britain, who received the statement from a Colonel now serving in India on the Bengal Staff, whose name is communicated on the understanding that it is not to be made public:—
"In the year 1860 I was stationed at Banda, in Bundelcund, India. There was a good deal of sickness there at the time, and I was deputed along with a medical officer to proceed to the nearest railway station at that time Allahabad, in charge of a sick officer. I will call myself Brown, the medical officer Jones, and the sick officer Robertson. We had to travel very slowly, Robertson being carried by coolies in a doolie, and on this account we had to halt at a rest-house, or pitch our camp every evening. One evening, when three marches out of Banda, I had just come into Robertson's room about midnight to relieve Jones, for Robertson was so ill that we took it by turns to watch him, when Jones took me aside and whispered that he was afraid our friend was dying, that he did not expect him to live through the night, and though I urged him to go and lie down, and that I would call him on any change taking place, he would not leave. We both sat down and watched. We had been there about an hour when the sick man moved and called out. We both went to his bedside, and even my inexperienced eyes saw that the end was near. We were both standing on the same side of the bed, furthest away from the door.
"Whilst we were standing there the door opened, and an elderly lady entered, went straight up to the bed, bent over it, wrung her hands and wept bitterly. After a few minutes she left; we both saw her face. We were so astonished that neither of us thought of speaking to her, but as soon as she passed out of the door I recovered myself and, as quickly as possible, followed her, but could not find a trace of her. Robertson died that night. We were then about thirty miles from the nearest cantonment, and except the rest-house in which we were, and of which we were the only occupants, there was not a house near us. Next morning we started back to Banda, taking the corpse with us for burial.
"Three months after this Jones went to England on leave, and took with him the sword, watch, and a few other things which had belonged to the deceased to deliver to his family. On arrival at Robertson's home, he was shown into the drawing-room. After waiting a few minutes, a lady entered—the same who had appeared to both of us in the jungle in India; it was Robertson's mother. She told Jones that she had had a vision that her son was dangerously ill, and had written the date, etc., down, and on comparing notes they found that the date, time, etc., agreed in every respect.
"People to whom I have told the story laugh at me, and tell me that I must have been asleep and dreamed it, but I know I was not, for I remember perfectly well standing by the bedside when the lady appeared."
Chapter III.
Aimless Doubles.
The following curious experience is sent me by a commercial traveller, who gives his name and address in support of his testimony. Writing from Nottingham, he says:—
"On Tuesday, the 6th October, I had a very singular experience. I am a commercial traveller, and represent a firm of cigar manufacturers. I left my hotel about four o'clock on the above date to call upon a customer, a Mr. Southam, Myton Gate, Hull. I met this gentleman in the street, nearly opposite his office; he shook hands, and said, 'How are you? I am waiting to see a friend; I don't think I shall want any cigars this journey, but look in before eight o'clock.' I called at 7.30, and spoke to the clerk in the office. He said, 'Mr. Southam has made out your cheque and there is also a small order.' I said, 'Thanks, I should have liked to have seen him; he made an appointment this afternoon for about eight.' The clerk said, 'Where?' I said, 'Just outside.' He said, 'That is impossible, as both Mr. and Mrs. Southam have been confined to their room for a fortnight and have never been out.' I said, 'How strange. I said to Mr. S——, "You look different to your usual; what's the matter with you?" Mr. S—— said, "Don't you see I am in mydeshabille?"' The clerk remarked, 'You must have seen his second self, for he has not been up to-day.' I came away feeling very strange."J. P. Brooks."Sydney Villa, Ratcliffe Road, Bridgeford."
"On Tuesday, the 6th October, I had a very singular experience. I am a commercial traveller, and represent a firm of cigar manufacturers. I left my hotel about four o'clock on the above date to call upon a customer, a Mr. Southam, Myton Gate, Hull. I met this gentleman in the street, nearly opposite his office; he shook hands, and said, 'How are you? I am waiting to see a friend; I don't think I shall want any cigars this journey, but look in before eight o'clock.' I called at 7.30, and spoke to the clerk in the office. He said, 'Mr. Southam has made out your cheque and there is also a small order.' I said, 'Thanks, I should have liked to have seen him; he made an appointment this afternoon for about eight.' The clerk said, 'Where?' I said, 'Just outside.' He said, 'That is impossible, as both Mr. and Mrs. Southam have been confined to their room for a fortnight and have never been out.' I said, 'How strange. I said to Mr. S——, "You look different to your usual; what's the matter with you?" Mr. S—— said, "Don't you see I am in mydeshabille?"' The clerk remarked, 'You must have seen his second self, for he has not been up to-day.' I came away feeling very strange.
"J. P. Brooks.
"Sydney Villa, Ratcliffe Road, Bridgeford."
Mrs. Eliz. G. L——, of H—— House, sends me the following report of her experience of the double. She writes:—
"The only time I ever saw an apparition was on the evening of the last day of May, 1860. The impression then made is most vivid, and the day seldom recurs without my thinking of what happened then.
"It was a little after seven o'clock, the time for my husband's return from business. I was passing through the hall into the dining-room, where tea was laid, when (the front door being open) I saw my husband coming up the garden path, which was in a direct line with the hall. It was broad daylight, and nothing obstructed my view of him, and he was not more than nine or ten yards from me. Instead of going to him, I turned back, and said to the servant in the kitchen, 'Take tea in immediately, your master is come.' I then went into the dining-room, expecting him to be there. To my great surprise the room was empty, and there was no one in the garden. As my father was very ill in the next house but one to ours, I concluded that Mr. L—— had suddenly determined to turn back and enquire how he was before having tea. In half an hour he came into the room to me, and I asked how my father was, when, to my astonishment, he told me that he had not called, but had come home direct from the town. I said, 'You were in the garden half an hour ago, I saw you as distinctly as I see you now; if you were not therethen, you are not herenow,' and I grasped his arm as I spoke to convince myself that it was really he. I thought that my husband was teasing me by his repeated denials, and that he would at last confess he was really there; and it was only when he assured me in the most positive and serious manner that he was a mile away at the time I saw him in the garden, that I could believe him. I have never been able to account for the appearance. There was no one I could possibly have mistaken for Mr. L——. I was in good health at the time, and had no illness for long afterwards. My mother is still living, and she can corroborate my statement, and bear witness to the deep impression the occurrence made upon me. Isawmy husband as plainly as I have ever seen him since during the many years we have lived together."
Two Dundee Doubles.
Mr. Robert Kidd, of Gray Street, Broughty Ferry, who has filled many offices in Dundee, having been twenty-five years a police commissioner and five years a magistrate there, sends me the following report of two cases of the double:—
"A few years ago I had a shop on the High Street of Dundee—one door and one window, a cellar underneath, the entrance to which was at one corner of the shop. There was no way of getting in or out of the cellar but by that stair in the corner. It was lighted from the street by glass, but to protect that there was an iron grating, which was fixed down. Well, I had an old man, a servant, named Robert Chester. I sent him a message one forenoon about 12 o'clock; he was in no hurry returning. I remarked to my daughter, who was a book-keeper, whose desk was just by the trap-door, that he was stopping long. Just as I spoke he passed the window, came in at the door, carrying a large dish under his arm, went right past me, past my daughter, who looked at him, and went down into the cellar. After a few minutes, as I heard no noise, I wondered what he could be about, and went down to see. There was no Robert there. I cannot tell what my sensations were when I realized this; there was no possibility of his getting out, and we both of us saw and heard him go down. Well, in about twenty minutes he re-passed the window, crossed the floor, and went downstairs, exactly as he had the first time. There was no hallucination on our part. My daughter is a clever, highly-gifted woman; I am seventy-eight years of age, and have seen a great deal of the world, a great reader, etc., etc., and not easily deceived or apt to be led away by fancy, and I can declare that his first appearance to us was a reality as much as the second; We concluded, and so did all his relations, that it portended his death, but he is still alive, over eighty years of age. I give this just as it occurred, without any varnish or exaggeration whatever. The following narrative I firmly believe, as I knew the parties well, and that every means were used to prove its truthfulness.
"Mr. Alexander Drummond was a painter, who had a big business and a large staff of men. His clerk was Walter Souter, his brother-in-law, whose business it was to be at the shop (in Northgate, Dundee) sharp at six o'clock in the morning, to take an account of where the men were going, quantity of material, etc. In this he was assisted by Miss Drummond. One morning he did not turn up at the hour, but at twenty past six he came in at the door and appeared very much excited; but instead of stepping to the desk, where Mr. and Miss Drummond were awaiting him, he went right through the front shop and out at a side door. This in sight of Mr. and Miss D——, and also in sight of a whole squad of workmen. Well, exactly in another twenty minutes he came in, also very much excited, and explained that it was twenty minutes past six when he awakened, and that he had run all the way from his house (he lived a mile from the place of business). He was a very exemplary, punctual man, and when Mr. Drummond asked him where he went to when he came first, he was dumbfounded, and could not comprehend what was meant. To test his truthfulness, Mr. D—— went out to his wife that afternoon, when she told him the same story; that it was twenty past six o'clock when he awoke, and that he was very much excited about it, as it was the first time he had slept in. This story I believe as firmly as in my own case, as it was much talked about at the time, and I have just told it as it was told to me by all the parties. Of course I am a total stranger to you, and you may require to know something about me before believing my somewhat singular stories. I am well known about here, have filled many offices in Dundee, and have been twenty-five years a police commissioner, and five years a magistrate in this place, am very well known to the Right Honourable C. Ritchie, and also to our county member, Mr. Barclay. If this little story throws any light upon our wondrous being I shall be glad."
A Manchester Parallel.
The following narrative, supplied by Mr. R. P. Roberts, 10, Exchange Street, Manchester, appears in the "Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society." It is a fitting pendant to Mr. Kidd's story:—
"The shop stood at the corner of Castle Street and Rating Row, Beaumaris, and I lived in the latter street. One day I went home to dinner at the usual hour. When I had partly finished I looked at the clock. To my astonishment it appeared that the time by the clock was 12.30. I gave an unusual start. I certainly thought that it was most extraordinary. I had only half-finished my dinner, and it was time for me to be at the shop. I felt dubious, so in a few seconds had another look, when to my agreeable surprise I found that I had been mistaken. It was only just turned 12.15. I could never explain how it was I made the mistake. The error gave me such a shock for a few minutes as if something had happened, and I had to make an effort to shake off the sensation. I finished my dinner, and returned to business at 12.30. On entering the shop I was accosted by Mrs. Owen, my employer's wife, who used to assist in the business. She asked me rather sternly where I had been since my return from dinner. I replied that I had come straight from dinner. A long discussion followed, which brought out the following facts. About a quarter of an hour previous to my actual entering the shop (i.e.about 12.15), I was seen by Mr. and Mrs. Owen and a well-known customer, Mrs. Jones, to walk into the shop, go behind the counter, and place my hat upon the peg. As I was going behind the counter, Mrs. Owen remarked, with the intention that I should hear, 'that I had arrived now that I was not wanted.' This remark was prompted by the fact that a few minutes previous a customer was in the shop in want of an article which belonged to the stock under my charge, and which could not be found in my absence. As soon as this customer left I was seen to enter the shop. It was observed by Mr. and Mrs. Owen and Mrs. Jones that I did not appear to notice the remark made. In fact, I looked quite absent-minded and vague. Immediately after putting my hat on the peg I returned to the same spot, put my hat on again, and walked out of the shop, still looking in a mysterious manner, which induced one of the parties, I think Mrs. Owen, to say that my behaviour was very odd, and she wondered where I was off to.
"I, of course, contradicted these statements, and endeavoured to prove that I could not have eaten my dinner and returned in a quarter of an hour. This, however, availed nothing, and during our discussion the above-mentioned Mrs. Jones came into the shop again, and was appealed to at once by Mr. and Mrs. Owen. She corroborated every word of their account, and added that she saw me coming down Rating Row when within a few yards of the shop; that she was only a step or two behind me, and entered the shop in time to hear Mrs. Owen's remarks about my coming too late. These three persons gave their statement of the affair quite independently of each other. There was no other person near my age in the Owens' establishment, and there could be no reasonable doubt that my form had been seen by them and by Mrs. Jones. They would not believe my story until my aunt, who had dined with me, said positively that I had not left the table before my time was up. You will, no doubt, notice the coincidence. At the moment when I felt, with a startling sensation, that I ought to be at the shop, and when Mr. and Mrs. Owen were extremely anxious that I should be there, I appeared to them looking, as they said, 'as if in a dream or in a state of somnambulism.'" ("Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society," Vol. I. p. 135-6.)
A Very Visible Double.
A correspondent, writing from a Yorkshire village, sends me the following account of an apparition of a Thought Body in circumstances when there was nothing more serious than a yearning desire on the part of a person whose phantasm appeared to occupy his old bed. My correspondent, Mr. J. G. ——, says that he took it down from the lips of one of the most truthful men he ever knew, and a sensible person to boot. This person is still living, and I am told he has confirmed Mr. G——'s story, which is as follows:—
"Sixty years ago I was a farm servant at a place in Pembrokeshire (I can give the name, but don't wish it to be published). I was about fifteen years old. I, along with three other men-servants, slept in a granary in the yard. Our bedchamber was reached by means of ten broad stone steps. It was soon after Allhallows time, when all farm servants change places in that part of the country. A good and faithful foreman, who had been years on the farm, had this time desired a change, and had engaged to service some fifteen miles off, a change which he afterwards much regretted.
"One night I woke up in my bed some time during the small hours of the morning, and obedient to the call of nature, I got up, opened the door, and stood on the upper step of the stairs. It was a beautiful moonlight night. I surveyed the yard and the fields about. To my surprise, but without the least apprehension, I noticed a man coming down a field, jump over a low wall, and walk straight towards me. He stepped the three first steps one by one, then he took two or three steps at a stride. I knew the man well and recognised him perfectly. I knew all the clothes he wore, particularly a light waistcoat which he put on on great occasions. As he drew near me I receded to the doorway, and as he lifted up his two hands, as in the act of opening the door, which was open already, I fled in screaming, and passing my own bed jumped in between two older men in the next bed. And neither time nor the sympathy of my comrades could pacify me for hours.
"I told my tale, which, after searching and seeing nobody, they disbelieved and put down to my timidity.
"Next morning, however, just as we were coming out from breakfast, in the presence of all of us the discharged foreman was seen coming down the same field, jumping the wall, walking toward the sleeping chamber, ascending the steps, lifting up his two hands to open the door in the self-same manner in every particular as I had described, and went straight to the same bed as I got into.
"I asked him, 'Were you here last night, John?'
"'No, my boy,' was the answer; 'my body was not here, but my mind was. I have run away from that horrid place, travelled most of the night, and every step I took my mind was fixed on this old bed, where my weary bones might be at rest.'"
I can supply names and all particulars, but do not wish them to be published.
Seeing Your Own Thought Body.
In his "Footfalls" Mr. Owen records a still more remarkable case of the duplication of the body. A gentleman in Ohio, in 1833, had built a new house, seventy or eighty yards distant from his old residence on the other side of a small ravine. One afternoon, about five o'clock, his wife saw his eldest daughter, Rhoda, aged sixteen, holding the youngest, Lucy, aged four, in her arm, sitting in a rocking-chair, just within the kitchen door of the new residence. She called the attention of another sister to what she saw, and was startled to hear that Rhoda and Lucy were upstairs in the old house. They were at once sent for, and on coming downstairs they saw, to their amazement, their exact doubles sitting on the doorstep of the new house. All the family collected—twelve in all—and they all saw the phantasmal Rhoda and Lucy, the real Rhoda and Lucy standing beside them. The figures seated at the hall door, and the two children now actually in their midst, were absolutely identical in appearance, even to each minute particular of dress. After watching them for five minutes, the father started to cross the ravine and solve the mystery. Hardly had he descended the ravine when the phantasmal Rhoda rose from the rocking chair, with the child in her arms, and lay down on the threshold. There she remained a moment or two, and then apparently sank into the earth. When the father reached the house no trace could be found of any human being. Both died within a year.
A correspondent of my own, a dressmaker in the North of England, sends me the following circumstantial account of how she saw her own double without any mischief following:—
"I have a sewing-machine, with a desk at one side and carved legs supporting the desk part; on the opposite side the machine part is. The lid of the machine rests on the desk part when open, so that it forms a high back. I had this machine across the corner of a room, so that the desk part formed a triangle with the corner of the room. I sat at the machine with my face towards the corner. To my left was the window, to my right the fire; at each side of my chair the doors of the machine walled me in as I sat working the treadles. Down each side of the machine are imitations of drawers. The wood is a beautiful walnut. I was sewing a long piece of material which passed from left to right. It was dinnertime, so I looked down to see how much more I had to do. It was almost finished, but there, in the space near the window, between the wall and the machine, was a full-sized figure of myself from the waist upwards. The image was lower than myself, but clear enough, with brown hair and eyes. How earnestly the eyes regarded me; how thoughtfully! I laughed and nodded at the image, but still it gazed earnestly at me. At its neck was a bright red bow, coming unpinned. Its white linen collar was turned up at the right-hand corner.
"When I got down to dinner I told my brother George I had seen Pepper's Ghost, and it was a distinct image of myself, clear enough, and yet I could see the wall and the side of the machine through the image, and George said, 'Had it a red bow and white collar on?' 'Oh, yes,' I said. 'It was just like me, only nicer, and when I laughed and nodded, it looked grave.' 'Very likely,' said George. 'It would think you very silly. And was its bow coming unpinned?' 'Yes,' I replied; 'and the right point of its collar was turned up.' He reached me a hand-mirror, and I saw that my bow was coming unpinned and the right point of my collar was turned up. So it could not have been a reflection, or it would not have been the right point, but the left of my collar that was turned up."
The Wraith as a Portent.
In the North country it is of popular belief that to see the ghost of a living man portends his approaching decease. The Rev. Henry Kendall, of Darlington, from whose diary (unpublished) I have the liberty to quote, notes the following illustration of this belief, under date August 16th, 1870:—
"Mrs. W. mentioned a curious incident that happened in Darlington: how Mrs. Percy, upholsterer, and known to several of us, was walking along the street one day when her husband was living, and she saw him walking a little way before her; then he left the causeway and turned in at a public-house. When she spoke to him of this, he said he had not been near the place, and she was so little satisfied with his statement that she called in at the 'public,' and asked them if her husband had been there, but they told her 'No.' In a very short period after this happened he died."
The phenomenon of a dual body haunted the imagination of poor Shelley. Shortly before his death he believed he had seen his wraith:—
"On the 23rd of June," says one of his biographers, "he was heard screaming at midnight in the saloon. The Williamses ran in and found him staring on vacancy. He had had a vision of a cloaked figure which came to his bedside and beckoned him to follow. He did so, and when they had reached the sitting-room, the figure lifted the hood of his cloak and disclosed Shelley's own features, and saying, 'Siete soddisfatto?' vanished. This vision is accounted for on the ground that Shelley had been reading a drama attributed to Calderon, named 'El Embozado o El Encapotado,' in which a mysterious personage who had been haunting and thwarting the hero all his life, and is at last about to give him satisfaction in a duel, finally unmasks and proves to be the hero's own wraith. He also asks, 'Art thou satisfied?' and the haunted man dies of horror."
On the 29th of June some friends distinctly saw Shelley walk into a little wood near Lerici, when in fact he was in a wholly different direction. This was related by Byron to Mr. Cowell.
It is difficult to frame any theory that will account for this double apparition, except, of course, the hypothesis of downright lying on the part of the witnesses. But the hypothesis of the duplication of the body in this extraordinary fashion is one which cannot be accepted until the immaterial body is photographed under test conditions at the same time that the material body is under safe custody in another place. Of course, it is well to bear in mind that to all those who profess to know anything of occult lore, and also to those who have the gift of clairvoyance, there is nothing new or strange in the doctrine of the immaterial body. Many clairvoyants declare that they constantly see the apparitions of the living mingling with the apparitions of the dead. They are easily distinguishable. The ghost of a living person is said to be opaque, whereas the ghost of one from whom life has departed is diaphanous as gossamer.
All this, of course, only causes the unbeliever to blaspheme. It is to him every whit as monstrous as the old stories of the witches riding on broomsticks. But the question is not to be settled by blasphemy on one side or credulity on the other. There is something behind these phantasmal apparitions; there is a real substratum of truth, if we could but get at it. There seems to be some faculty latent in the human mind, by which it can in some cases impress upon the eye and ear of a person at almost any distance the image and the voice. We may call it telepathy or what we please. It is a marvellous power, the mere hint of which indefinitely expands the horizon of the imagination. The telephone is but a mere child's toy compared with the gift to transmit not only the sound of the voice but the actual visible image of the speaker for hundreds of miles without any conductor known to man.
Chapter IV.
The Hypnotic Key.
Hypnotism is the key which will enable us to unlock most of these mysteries, and so far as hypnotism has spoken it does not tend to encourage the belief that the immaterial body has any substance other than the hallucination of the person who sees it. Various cases are reported by hypnotist practitioners which suggest that there is an almost illimitable capacity of the human mind to see visions and to hear voices. One very remarkable case was that of a girl who was told at midsummer by the hypnotist, when in the hypnotic state, that he would come to see her on New Year's Day. When she awoke from the trance she knew nothing about the conversation. One hundred and seventy-one days passed without any reference to it. But on the 172nd day, being New Year's Day, she positively declared that the doctor had entered her room, greeted her, and then departed. Curiously enough, as showing the purely subjective character of the vision, the doctor appeared to her in the depth of winter, wearing the light summer apparel he had on when he made the appointment in July. In this case there can be no question as to the apparition being purely subjective. The doctor did not make any attempt to visit her in his immaterial body, but she saw him and heard him as if he were there.
The late Mr. Gurney conducted some experiments with a hypnotic subject which seem to confirm the opinion that the phantasmal body is a merely subjective hallucination, although, of course, this would not explain how information had been actually imparted to the phantasmal visitant by the person who saw, or imagined they saw, his wraith. Mr. Gurney's cases are, however, very interesting, if only as indicating the absolute certainty which a hypnotised patient can be made to feel as to the objectivity of sights and sounds:—
"S. hypnotised Zillah, and told her that she would see him standing in the room at three o'clock next afternoon, and that she would hear him call her twice by name. She was told that he would not stop many seconds. On waking she had no notion of the ideas impressed upon her.
"Next day, however, she came upstairs about five minutes past three, looking ghastly and startled. She said, 'I have seen a ghost.' I assumed intense amazement, and she said she was in the kitchen cleaning some silver, and suddenly she heard her name called sharply twice over, 'Zillah!' in Mr. Smith's voice. She said, 'And I dropped the spoon I was rubbing, and turned and saw Mr. S., without his hat, standing at the foot of the kitchen stairs. I saw him as plain as I see you,' she said, and looked very wild and vacant.
"The next experiment took place on Wednesday evening, July 13th, 1887, when S., told her, when hypnotised, that the next afternoon, at three o'clock, she would see me (Mr. Gurney) come into the room to her. She was further told that I would keep my hat on and say, 'Good-morning,' and that I would remark, 'It is very warm,' and would then turn round and walk out.
"Next day this is what Zillah reported. She said, 'I was in the kitchen washing up, and had just looked at the clock, and was startled to see how late it was (five minutes to three) when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs—rather a quick, light step—and I thought it was Mr. Sleep' (the dentist whose rooms are in the house), 'but as I turned round, with a dish mop in one hand and a plate in the other, I saw some one with a hat on who had to stoop as he came down the last step, and there was Mr. Gurney. He was dressed just as I saw him last night, black coat and grey trousers, his hat on, and a roll of paper like manuscript in his hand, and he said, "Oh! good-afternoon;" and then he glanced all round the kitchen and he glanced at me with an awful look, as if he was going to murder me, and said, "Warm afternoon, isn't it?" and then "Good-afternoon," or "Good-day," I am not sure which, and then turned and went up the stairs again; and after standing thunderstruck a minute, I ran to the foot of the stairs and saw just like a boot disappearing on the top step.' She said, 'I think I must be going crazy. Why should I always see something at three o'clock each day after the seance?'" (Vol. V. pp. 11-13.)
Whatever hypothesis we select to explain these mysteries, they do not become less marvellous. Even if we grant that it is mere telepathy, or mind affecting mind at a distance without the use of the recognised organs of sense or of any of the ordinary conducting mediums, what an enormous extension it gives to the ordinary conception of the limits of the human mind! To be able instantaneously to paint upon the retina of a friend's eye the life-like image of ourselves, to make our voice sound in his ears at a distance of many miles, and to communicate to his mind information which he had never before heard of, all this is, it may be admitted, as tremendous a draft upon the credulity of mankind as the favourite Theosophical formula of the astral body. Yet who is there who, in face of the facts and experiences recorded above, will venture to deny that one or other of these hypotheses alone can account for the phenomena under consideration?
It is obvious that when once the possibility of the Double is admitted, many mysteries could be cleared up, although it is also true that a great many inconveniences would immediately follow; the establishment of the reality of the double would invalidate every plea ofalibi. If a man can really be in two places at one time, there is an end to the plea which is most frequently resorted to by the accused to prove their innocence. There are other inconveniences, which are alluded to in the following letter from a lady correspondent, who believes that she has the faculty in frequent, although uncertain and unconscious, use:—
"'I saw you yesterday, and you cut me.' Such was the remark I frequently heard from my friends: in the broad daylight they saw me in street or tram, etc. Once a personal friend followed me into church on Christmas Day in a city at least 100 miles from where I really was. Another time I sat two pews in front of a friend at a cathedral service. When I denied having been there, she said, 'It's no good talking: I saw you, and you didn't want to wait for me.' 'But,' I said, 'you have my word that I was not there.' 'Yes,' she said, 'but I have my sight, and I saw you.' Of course, I naturally thought it was some one like me, and said, perhaps rather sarcastically, 'Would it be very strange if any one else bore some resemblance to me?' 'No,' said my friend, 'it would not; but someone else doesn't wear your clothes.' On one occasion I remember three people saw me where I certainly was not physically present the same day; all knew me personally. I often bought books of a man who kept a second-hand bookstall. One day he told me that he had a somewhat rare edition of a book I wanted, but that it was at the shop. I said, 'I'll come across to-morrow for it if I make up my mind to give the price.' The next day I was prevented from going, and went the day after, to hear it was sold. 'Why didn't you keep it?' I asked. 'I thought you did not want it when you came yesterday and did not buy it.' 'But I didn't come yesterday.' 'Why, excuse me, you did, and took the book up and laid it down again while I was serving Mr. M., and you went away before I could ask you about it; Mr. M. remarked that it was strange you did not answer him when he spoke.' When I asked the gentleman referred to, he confirmed the story. Mrs. B. also saw me lower down the same street that morning.
"Still it never struck me that it was anything strange; I was only rather curious to see the woman who was so like me. I saw her in an unexpected manner. Going into my room one night, I happened to glance down at my bed, and saw a form there. I thought it strange, yet was not startled. I bent over it, and recognised my own features distinctly. I was in perfect health at the time, and no disaster followed."
Queen Elizabeth's Double.
In a volume published by Macmillan & Co., entitled "Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celt," I find the following references to the Double:—
"If this phantom be seen in the morning it betokens good fortune and long life to its prototype; if in the evening a near death awaits him. This superstition was known and felt in England even in the reign of Elizabeth. We quote a passage from Miss Strickland's account of her last illness:—
"'As her mortal illness drew towards a close, the superstitious fears of her simple ladies were excited almost to mania, even to conjuring up a spectral apparition of the Queen while she was yet alive. Lady Guildford, who was then in waiting on the Queen, leaving her in an almost breathless sleep in her privy chamber, went out to take a little air, and met her Majesty, as she thought, three or four chambers off. Alarmed at the thought of being discovered in the act of leaving the Royal patient alone, she hurried forward in some trepidation in order to excuse herself, when the apparition vanished away. She returned terrified to the chamber, but there lay the Queen still in the same lethargic slumber in which she left her.'"
"Moreover, the spirit lifted me up and brought me unto the East gate, and, behold, at the door of the gate five-and-twenty men, among whom I saw," etc.—Ezekielxi. 1.
Chapter I.
The Astral Camera.
When I was staying at Orchard Lea, in Windsor Forest, I did most of my writing in a spacious window on the first floor looking out over the garden. It opened French fashion, and thereby occasioned a curious optical illusion, which may perhaps help to shed some light upon the phenomena now under consideration. For when the sun was high in the sky and the French window was set at a certain angle, the whole of the flowers, figures, etc., on my right hand appeared reflected upon the lawn on the left hand as vividly as if they actually existed in duplicate. So real was the illusion that for some hours I was under the impression that a broad yellow gravel path actually stretched across the lawn on my left. It was only when a little dog ran along the spectral path and suddenly vanished into thin air that I discovered the illusion. Nothing could be more complete, more life-like. The real persons who walked up the gravel to the house walked across the spectral gravel, apparently in duplicate. Both could be seen at one and the same time. I instantly thought that they could be photographed, so as to show the duplication produced by the illusion. Unfortunately, although the spectral path was distinctly visible through the glass to the eye, no impression whatever was left on the sensitive plate. My friend writes:—
"I have tried the phantom path, and I am sorry to say it is too phantom to make any impression on the plate. All that you get is the blaze of light from the glass window, some very faint trees, and no path at all. Possibly, with a June sun, it might have been different; but I doubt it, as one is told never to put the camera facing a window. It is having to take through the glass window which is fatal."
This set me thinking. It was a simple optical illusion, no doubt, similar to that which enabled Pepper to produce his ghosts at the Polytechnic. But what was the agency which enabled me to see the figures and flowers, and trees and gravel, all transferred, as by the cunning act of some magician, from the right to the left? Simply a swinging pane of perfectly transparent glass. To those who have neither studied the laws of optics nor seen the phenomenon in question, it must seem impossible that a pellucid window-pane could transfer so faithfully that which happened at one end of the garden to the other as to cause it to be mistaken for reality. Yet there was the phenomenon before my eyes. The dog ran double—the real dog to the right, the spectral dog to the left—and no one could tell at first sight "t'other from which." Now, may it not be that this supplies a suggestion as to the cause of the phenomenon of clairvoyance? Is it not possible that there may exist in Nature some as yet undiscovered analogue to the swinging windowpane which may enable us to see before our eyes here and now events which are transpiring at the other end of the world? In the mysterious, subconscious world in which the clairvoyant lives, may there not be some subtle, sympathetic lens, fashioned out of strong affection or some other relation, which may enable some of us to see that which is quite invisible to the ordinary eye?
A Surrey Laundry Seen in Cornwall.
Such thoughts came to my mind when I asked the Housekeeper whether she had ever seen any of the phantasmal apparitions of her mistress, my hostess, Mrs. M. The housekeeper, a comfortable, buxom Cornish woman, smiled incredulously. No, she had seen nothing, heard nothing, believed nothing. "As to phantasmal bodies, she would prefer to see them first." "Had she ever seen a ghost?" "No, never." "Had ever had any hallucinations?" "No." But one thing had happened, "rather curious" now that she came to think of it. Last year, when living on the coast far down in the west country, she had suddenly seen as in a dream the house in Hindhead where we were now standing. She had never been in Surrey in her life. She had no idea that she would ever go there, nor did she know that it was in Surrey. What she saw was the laundry. She was standing inside it, and remarked to her husband how strange and large it looked. She looked out at the windows and saw the house and the surroundings with strange distinctness. Then the vision faded away, leaving no other impress on the mind than that she had seen an exceptionally large laundry close to a small country-house in a place where she had never been in before.
Six months passed; she and her husband had decided to leave the west country and take a housekeeper and gardener's post elsewhere. They replied to an advertisement, were appointed by my hostess; they transferred themselves to Hindhead, where they arrived in the dead of winter. When they reached their new quarters she saw, to her infinite astonishment, the precise place she had seen six months before. The laundry was unmistakable. There is not such another laundry in the county of Surrey. There it was, sure enough, and there was the house, and there were all the surroundings exactly as she had seen them down on the south-west coast. She did not believe in ghosts or phantasmal bodies or such like things, but one thing she knew beyond all possibility of doubt. She had seen her new home and laundry on the top of Hindhead, when living in the west country six months before she ever set foot in Surrey, or even knew of the existence of Mrs. M. "The moment I saw it I recognised it and told my husband that it was the identical place I had seen when in our old home."
William Howitt's Vision.
The Housekeeper's story is very simple, and almost too commonplace. But its significance lies in those very characteristics. Here was no consuming passion, no bond of sympathy, nothing whatever material or sentimental to act as the refracting medium by which the Hindhead laundry could have been made visible in South Devon. Yet similar phenomena are of constant occurrence. A very remarkable case in point is that of William Howitt who, when on a voyage out to Australia, saw his brother's house at Melbourne so plainly that he described it on board ship, and recognised it the moment he landed. Here is his own version of this remarkable instance of clairvoyance:—
"Some weeks ago, while yet at sea, I had a dream of being at my brother's at Melbourne, and found his house on a hill at the further end of the town, and next to the open forest. His garden sloped a little down the hill to some brick buildings below; and there were greenhouses on the right hand by the wall, as you look down the hill from the house. As I looked out of the window in my dream, I saw a wood of dusky-foliaged trees having a somewhat segregated appearance in their heads—that is, their heads did not make that dense mass like our trees. 'There,' I said to some one in my dream, 'I see your native forest of eucalyptus!'
"This dream I told to my sons and to two of my fellow-passengers at the time, and on landing, as we walked over the meadows, long before we reached the town, I saw this very wood. 'There,' I said, 'is the very wood of my dream. We shall see my brother's house there! And so we did. It stands exactly as I saw it, only looking newer; but there, over the wall of the garden, is the wood, precisely as I saw it and now see it as I sit at the dining-room window writing. When I looked on this scene I seem to look into my dream." (Owen's "Footfalls," p. 118.)
The usual explanation of these things is that the vision is the revival of some forgotten impressions on the brain. But in neither of the foregoing cases will that explanation suffice, for in neither case had the person who saw ever been in the place of which they had a vision. One desperate resource, the convenient theory of pre-existence, is useless here. The fact seems to be that there is a kind of invisible camera obscura in Nature, which at odd times gives us glimpses of things happening or existing far beyond the range of our ordinary vision. The other day when in Edinburgh I climbed up to the Camera Obscura that stands near the castle, and admired the simple device by which, in a darkened room upon a white, paper-covered table, the whole panorama of Edinburgh life was displayed before me. There were the "recruities" drilling on the Castle Esplanade; there were the passers-by hurrying along High Street; there were the birds on the housetops, and the landscape of chimneys and steeples, all revealed as if in the crystal of a wizard's cave. The coloured shadows chased each other across the paper, leaving no trace behind. Five hundred years ago the owner of that camera would have been burned as a wizard; now he makes a comfortable living out of the threepennypieces of inquisitive visitors. Is it possible to account for the phenomena of clairvoyance other than by the supposition that there exists somewhere in Nature a gigantic camera obscura which reflects everything, and to which clairvoyants habitually, and other mortals occasionally, have access?
Seen and Heard at 150 Miles Range.
The preceding incidents simply record a prevision of places subsequently visited. The following are instances in which not only places, but occurrences, were seen as in a camera by persons at a distance varying from 150 to several thousand miles. Space seems to have no existence for the clairvoyant. They are quoted from the published "Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society":
On September 9th, 1848, at the siege of Mooltan, Major-General R——, C.B., then adjutant of his regiment, was most severely and dangerously wounded; and supposing himself to be dying, asked one of the officers with him to take the ring off his finger and send it to his wife, who at the time was fully 150 miles distant, at Ferozepore.
"On the night of September 9th, 1848," writes his wife, "I was lying on my bed between sleeping and waking, when I distinctly saw my husband being carried off the field, seriously wounded, and heard his voice saying, 'Take this ring off my finger and send it to my wife.' All the next day I could not get the sight or the voice out of my mind. In due time I heard of General R—— having been severely wounded in the assault of Mooltan. He survived, however, and is still living. It was not for some time after the siege that I heard from General L——, the officer who helped to carry General R—— off the field, that the request as to the ring was actually made to him, just as I heard it at Ferozepore at that very time." (Vol. I. p. 30.)
A Royal Deathbed in France seen in Scotland.
The above case is remarkable because the voice was transmitted as well as the spectacle. In the next story the ear heard nothing, but the scene itself was very remarkable. A correspondent of the Psychical Research Society writes that whilst staying with her mother's cousin, Mrs. Elizabeth Broughton, wife of Mr. Edward Broughton, Edinburgh, and daughter of the late Colonel Blanckley, in the year 1844, she told her the following strange story:—
"She awoke one night and aroused her husband, telling him that something dreadful had happened in France. He begged her to go to sleep again and not to trouble him. She assured him that she was not asleep when she saw what she insisted on then telling him—what she saw, in fact, was; First, a carriage accident—which she did not actually see, but what she saw was the result—a broken carriage, a crowd collected, a figure gently raised and carried into the nearest house, then a figure lying on a bed, which she then recognised as the Duke of Orleans. Gradually friends collecting round the bed—among them several members of the French royal family—the queen, then the king, all silently, tearfully watching the evidently dying duke. One man (she could see his back, but did not know who he was) was a doctor. He stood bending over the duke, feeling his pulse, his watch in the other hand. And then all passed away; she saw no more. As soon as it was daylight she wrote down in her journal all that she had seen. From that journal she read this to me. It was before the days of electric telegraph, and two or more days passed before theTimesannounced 'The Death of the Duke of Orleans.' Visiting Paris a short time afterwards, she saw and recognised the place of the accident and received the explanation of her impression. The doctor who attended the dying duke was an old friend of hers, and as he watched by the bed his mind had been constantly occupied with her and her family." (Vol. II. p. 160.)
The doctor's sympathy may have been the key to the secret camera of Nature, but it in no wise "explains" how a lady in Edinburgh could see what went on inside a house in Paris so clearly as to know what had happened two days before the intelligence reached theTimes.
An African Event Seen in England.
Here is another story where the event occurred in Africa and was seen in England. A correspondent from Wadhurst, West Dulwich, S.E., says:—
"My late husband dreamt a certain curious dream about his brother, Mr. Ralph Holden, who was at that time travelling in the interior of Africa. One morning, in June or July, 1861, my husband woke me with the announcement, 'Ralph is dead.' I said, 'You must be dreaming.' 'No, I am not dreaming now; but I dreamt twice over that I saw Ralph lying on the ground supported by a man.' They learnt afterwards that Ralph must have died about the time when his brother dreamt about him and that he had died in the arms of his faithful native servant, lying under a large tree, where he was afterwards buried. The Holden family have sketches of the tree and the surroundings, and, on seeing it, my husband said, 'Yes, that is exactly the place where I saw Ralph in my dream, dying or dead.'" (Vol. I. p. 141.)
A Vision Which Saved Many Lives.
Dr. Horace Bushnell, in his "Nature and the Supernatural," tells a story, on the authority of Captain Yonnt, which differs from the foregoing in having a definite purpose, which, fortunately, was attained. Captain Yonnt, a patriarch in the Napa valley of California, told Dr. Bushnell that six or seven years before their conversation he had seen a vision which saved several lives. Here is his story:—
"About six or seven years previous, in a mid-winter's night, he had a dream, in which he saw what appeared to be a company of emigrants arrested by the snows of the mountains and perishing rapidly by cold and hunger. He noted the very cast of the scenery, marked by a huge, perpendicular front of white rock cliff; he saw the men cutting off what appeared to be tree-tops rising out of deep gulfs of snow; he distinguished the very features of the persons and the look of their particular distress. He awoke profoundly impressed by the distinctness and apparent reality of the dream. He at length fell asleep, and dreamed exactly the same dream over again. In the morning he could not expel it from his mind. Falling in shortly after with an old hunter comrade, he told his story, and was only the more deeply impressed by his recognising without hesitation the scenery of the dream. This comrade came over the Sierra, by the Carson Valley Pass, and declared that a spot in the Pass answered exactly his description. By this the unsophistical patriarch was decided. He immediately collected a company of men, with mules and blankets and all necessary provisions. The neighbours were laughing meantime at his credulity. 'No matter,' he said, 'I am able to do this, and I will; for I verily believe that the fact is according to my dream.' The men were sent into the mountains one hundred and fifty miles distant, directly to the Carson Valley Pass. And there they found the company exactly in the condition of the dream, and brought in the remnant alive." ("Nature and the Supernatural," p. 14.)
The Vision of a Fire.
The wife of a Dean of the Episcopal Church in one of the Southern States of America was visiting at my house while I was busy collecting materials for this work. Asking her the usual question as to whether she had ever experienced anything of the phenomena usually called supernatural, apparently because it is not the habitual experience of every twenty-four hours, she ridiculed the idea. Ghosts? not she. She was a severely practical, matter-of-fact person, who used her natural senses, and had nothing to do with spirits. But was she quite sure; had nothing ever occurred to her which she could not explain? Then she hesitated and said, "Well, yes; but there is nothing supernatural about it. I was staying away down in Virginia, some hundred miles from home, when one morning, about eleven o'clock, I felt an over-powering sleepiness. I never sleep in the daytime, and that drowsiness was, I think, almost my only experience of that kind. I was so sleepy I went to my room and lay down. In my sleep I saw quite distinctly my home at Richmond in flames. The fire had broken out in one wing of the house, which I saw with dismay was where I kept all my best dresses. The people were all about trying to check the flames, but it was of no use. My husband was there, walking about before the burning house, carrying a portrait in his hand. Everything was quite clear and distinct, exactly as if I had actually been present and seen everything. After a time I woke up, and, going downstairs, told my friends the strange dream I had had. They laughed at me, and made such game of my vision that I did my best to think no more about it. I was travelling about, a day or two passed, and when Sunday came I found myself in a church where some relatives were worshipping. When I entered the pew they looked rather strange, and as soon as the service was over I asked them what was the matter. 'Don't be alarmed,' they said, 'there is nothing serious.' They then handed me a postcard from my husband, which simply said, 'House burned out; covered by insurance.' The date was the day on which my dream occurred. I hastened home, and then I learned that everything had happened exactly as I had seen it. The fire had broken out in the wing which I had seen blazing. My clothes were all burnt, and the oddest thing about it was that my husband, having rescued a favourite picture from the burning building, had carried it about among the crowd for some time before he could find a place in which to put it safely." Swedenborg, it will be remembered, also had a clairvoyant vision of a fire at a great distance.
The Loss of the "Strathmore."
A classic instance of the exercise of this faculty is the story of the wreck of theStrathmore. In brief the story is as follows:—The father of a son who had sailed in theStrathmore, an emigrant ship outward bound from the Clyde, saw one night the ship foundering amid the waves, and saw that his son, with some others, had escaped safely to a desert island near which the wreck had taken place. He was so much impressed by this vision that he wrote to the owner of theStrathmore, telling him what he had seen. His information was scouted; but after awhile theStrathmorewas overdue and the owner got uneasy. Day followed day, and still no tidings of the missing ship. Then, like Pharaoh's butler, the owner remembered his sins one day and hunted up the letter describing the vision. It supplied at least a theory to account for the vessel's disappearance. All outward bound ships were requested to look out for any survivors on the island indicated in the vision. These orders being obeyed, the survivors of theStrathmorewere found exactly where the father had seen them. In itself this is sufficient to confound all accepted hypotheses. Taken in connection with other instances of a similar nature, what can be said of it excepting that it almost necessitates the supposition of the existence of the invisible camera obscura which the Theosophists describe as the astral light?
The Analogy of the Camera Obscura.
Clairvoyance can often be explained by telepathy, especially when there is strong sympathy between the person who sees and the person who is seen. Mr. Edward R. Lipsitt, of Tralee, sends me the following narrative, which illustrates this fact:—
"I beg to narrate a curious case of telepathy I experienced when quite a boy. Some ten years ago I happened to sleep one night in the same room with a young friend of about my own age. There existed a very strong sympathy between us. I got up early and went out for a short walk, leaving my friend fast asleep in his bed. I went in the direction of a well-known lake in that district. After gazing for some moments at the silent waters, I espied a large black dog making towards me. I turned my back and fled, the dog following me for some distance. My boots then being in a bad condition, one of the soles came off in the flight; however, I came away unmolested by the dog. But how amazed was I when upon entering the room my friend, who was just rubbing his eyes and yawning, related to me my adventure word by word, describing even the colour of the dog and the very boot (the right one) the sole of which gave way!"
Motiveless Visions.
There is often no motive whatever to be discovered in the apparition. A remarkable instance of this is recorded by Mr. Myers in an article in theArena, where the analogy to a camera obscura is very close. The camera reflects everything that happens. Nothing is either great or small to its impartial lens. But if you do not happen to be in the right place, or if the room is not properly darkened, or if the white paper is taken off the table, you see nothing. We have not yet mastered the conditions of the astral camera. Here, however, is Mr. Myers' story, which he owes to the kindness of Dr. Elliott Coues, who happened to call on Mrs. C—— the very day on which that lady received the following letter from her friend Mrs. B——.