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Title: True Ghost Stories
Author: Carrington, Hereward, 1880-1959
Language: English
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TRUE GHOST STORIES
by
HEREWARD CARRINGTON
Author of "The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism," "The Coming
Science," "Death: its Causes and Phenomena,"
"Death Deferred," etc.
[Illustration]
New York
The J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Company
57 Rose Street
Copyright, 1915, by
J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Company
_To_
MY DEAR FRIENDS
THE MARSHALLS
CONTENTS
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 7
PREFACE 9
CHAPTER I
What is a Ghost? 13
The Terror of the Dark 14
What is a Ghost? 18
Historic Investigations 20
Death Coincidences 21
Are They Due to Chance? 24
The Explanation 26
Experimental Apparitions 27
Telepathic Hallucinations 32
Ghosts Which Move Material Objects 37
Photographs of Ghosts 38
The "Double" and the Spiritual Body 40
What Happens at the Moment of Death 43
How the Soul May Leave the Body 47
Theories of Haunted Houses 51
The Ghosts of Animals 53
The Clothes of Ghosts 55
Telepathy from the Dead 57
The Psychic Atmosphere 59
Forms Created by Will 60
Physical Manifestations 62
Can Haunted Houses be "Cured"? 63
CHAPTER II
Phantasms of the Dead--I 65
A Russian Ghost 65
Grasped by a Spirit Hand 71
"I Am Shot!" 74
"Heave the Lead!" 75
The Rescue at Sea 78
How Ghosts Influence Us 86
How a Ghost Warned the King 90
The Stains of Blood 93
Face to Face 96
"Julia, Darling!" 98
The Cut Across the Cheek 99
The Invisible Hand 100
The Apparition of the Radiant Boy 104
Fisher's Ghost 106
Harriet Hosmer's Vision 109
The Apparition of the Murdered Boy 112
The Ghost in Yellow Calico 116
CHAPTER III
More Phantasms of the Dead--II 120
Compacts to Appear after Death 120
Lord Brougham's Vision 122
The Tyrone Ghost 125
Dead or Alive! 128
The Scratch on the Cheek 135
A Ghost in Hampton Court 139
Half-Past One O'clock 147
My Own True Ghost Story 155
CHAPTER IV
Haunted Houses 163
The Record of a Haunted House 165
Proofs of Immateriality 168
Conduct of Animals in the House 169
B---- House 170
Willington Mill 174
The Great Amherst Mystery 176
Brook House 186
CHAPTER V
Ghost Stories of a More Dramatic Nature 194
Disease-Phantoms 194
The Tale of a Mummy 198
Face Slapped by a Ghost 204
Alone with a Ghost in Church 207
A Haunted House in France 210
A Haunted House in Georgia 213
Shaken by a Ghost 220
The House and the Brain 221
APPENDIX A
Historical Ghosts 230
APPENDIX B
The Phantom Armies Seen in France 236
APPENDIX C
Bibliography 245
PUBLISHER'S NOTE.
HEREWARD CARRINGTON, author of "True Ghost Stories," is well known
in this country, and in Europe, as a prominent scientific writer on
psychical and occult subjects. He has been a member of both the English
and American Societies of Psychical Research for more than 15 years;
has written over a dozen books on the subject--a number of which has
been translated into foreign languages (such as Japanese and Arabic),
and he has lectured in London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Milan, Genoa,
Turin, etc.--before scientific organizations. His writings are well
known, and have earned him a high place in psychical circles. He's a
late member of the Council of the American Scientific Society, of the
American Geographical Society, and of the American Health League. He
collaborated in the "American Encyclopædia," "The Standard Dictionary,"
etc. His experience in the investigation of psychical mysteries is
unrivalled. He has travelled all over the country investigating
"cases," spending nights in "haunted houses," and accounts of his
investigations have appeared in the Reports of the various Psychical
Societies, and also in his own publications.
In "True Ghost Stories," Mr. Carrington presents a number of startling
cases of this character; but they are not the ordinary "ghost
stories"--based on pure fiction, and having no foundation in reality.
Here we have a well-arranged collection of incidents, all thoroughly
investigated and vouched for, and the testimony obtained first-hand and
corroborated by others. The chapter on "Haunted Houses" is particularly
striking. The first chapter deals with the interesting question, "What
is a Ghost?" and attempts to answer this question in the light of the
latest scientific theories which have been advanced to explain these
supernatural happenings and visitants. It is a book of absorbing
interest, and cannot fail to grip and hold the attention of every
reader--no matter whether he be a student of these questions, or one
merely in search of hair-raising anecdotes and stories. He will find
them here a-plenty!
PREFACE
The following little book endeavors to bring together a number of
"ghost stories" of the more startling and dramatic type,--but stories,
nevertheless, which seem to be well authenticated; and which have
been obtained, in most instances, at first hand, from the original
witnesses; and often contain corroborative testimony from others who
also experienced the ghostly phenomena. Some of these incidents,
indeed, rise to the dignity of scientific evidence; others are less
well authenticated cases,--but interesting for all that. These have
been grouped in various Chapters, according to their evidential value.
Chapters II. and III. contain well-evidenced cases, some of which have
been taken from the _Proceedings_ and _Journals_ of the Society for
Psychical Research (S. P. R.), or from _Phantasms of the Living_, or
from other scientific books, in which narratives of this character
receive serious consideration. Chapter V., on the contrary, contains a
number of incidents which,--striking and dramatic as they are,--cannot
be included in the two earlier Chapters, as presenting real evidence
of Ghosts; but are published rather as startling and interesting ghost
_stories_. Chapter IV., devoted to "Haunted Houses," contains brief
accounts of the most famous Haunted Houses, and of the phenomena which
have been witnessed within them. Appendix A gives a list of a few of
the important "Historical Ghosts," Appendix B describes the "Phantom
Armies" lately seen by the Allied troops in France--while Appendix C
lists a number of books of Ghost Stories which the interested reader
may care to peruse. A short Glossary, at the beginning of the book,
explains the meaning of certain terms used,--which are not, perhaps,
ordinarily met with in books of this character.
In the Introductory Chapter, I have endeavored to explain, very
briefly, the nature and character of Ghosts; what they _are_; and the
various scientific theories which have been brought forward, of late
years, to explain Ghosts. I hope that this may prove of interest to the
reader; in case it does not do so, he is invited to "skip" directly to
Chapter II., which begins our account of "True Ghost Stories."
I wish to express my thanks in this place to the Council of the English
S. P. R. for special permission to quote and to summarize several
striking cases here reproduced; also to Miss Estelle Stead, for
permission to utilize several cases previously printed at length in Mr.
Wm. T. Stead's collections of Ghost Stories.
H. C.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED
AGENT--The person who, in thought-transference experiments, endeavors
to impress his thoughts upon the "percipient" or "receiver."
DEATH-COINCIDENCE--A case in which an apparition or other ghostly
phenomenon has taken place, at the moment of the death of the person
represented by the phantom.
GHOST--An apparition, a phantom. Some contend that all ghosts are
"subjective" or purely mental (hallucinations); others that some
ghosts are "objective"--that is, space-occupying entities, which exist
apart from the seer, who sees them. These points will be found fully
discussed in this book.
HALLUCINATION--A mental experience, in which a phantom is seen, a voice
heard, etc., when there is no real external cause for this seeing or
hearing. Hallucinations are more complete than mere "illusions."
PACT--An agreement, entered into before death, between two persons,
that, whichever one dies first, shall appear to the other one. These
are here called "Pact Cases." [A Pact may also mean an agreement
between a necromancer of some spirit-intelligence, as in Magic; but
the word is not used in that sense in this book.]
PERCIPIENT--The receiver of the telepathic or other message. The one
who experiences the phenomenon.
PHANTASM--A phantom; an apparition; a "ghost." The word is more
inclusive than any of the words suggested; and is used by preference,
by most psychic students.
TELEPATHY--Mind-reading; thought-transference.
TRUE GHOST STORIES
CHAPTER I
WHAT IS A GHOST?
Ghosts have been believed in by every nation, at every time and at
every stage of the world's evolution. No matter where we may go, we
find them stalking through the pages of history;[1] and even in our own
cynical and materialistic age, we not only find "ghosts" still; but
the evidence for their existence is stronger than ever! It is nonsense
to say that "no sensible person believes in ghosts," because many
thousands of them _do_. Why do they believe? Would they believe if they
had no cause to do so?
[1] See Appendix A.
The "terror of the dark," which we all have more or less, from which
every child suffers (how intensely!) during its early years--a terror
which is, to a certain extent, shared by animals and even insects--does
all this signify nothing? Those who have looked into this question
thoroughly, believe that there is, in every truth, a terrible reality
justifying this instinctive fear; that evil and horrible things lurk
about us in the still, weird hours of the night; that there are truly
"powers and principalities" with which we often toy, without knowing or
realizing the frightful dangers which result from this tampering with
the unseen world. Yes; there is a true "tyranny of the dark." Phenomena
and ghostly manifestations take place in darkness which would never
occur in light; and which cease when a light is struck. All ghostly
phenomena are associated with darkness, and the "wee small hours of the
night."
All this is exemplified in the following interesting narrative, which I
may entitle:
THE TERROR OF THE DARK
"All my life I have been afraid of the dark," said an acquaintance to
me the other day, when we were discussing psychical matters. "I know
that it is childish," he continued, "and I ought to have outgrown it
years ago; but, as a matter of fact, I haven't. After all, isn't there
some reason for the fears that we all feel, more or less, at that time?
Doesn't the Bible speak of 'the terrors of the Dark;' and are not all
animals, and even insects, afraid of the dark--so much so that you
cannot induce them to enter a dark place if they can help it? Light not
only enables you to see what is around you; but it acts in a certain
positive manner over 'the powers of darkness,' whatever they are,
and prevents their operation. All spirit mediums will tell you that
materialization and manifestations of that character cannot take place
in the light; it prevents their occurrence. So, after all, as I said,
isn't there some reasonable ground for one's fear at such times?"
I said nothing; but gazed into the fire. After all, were not his
arguments somewhat impressive?
"But," continued my friend, "it is not altogether because of these
speculative reasons that I fear the dark; it is because of a terrible
experience I once had, and which has left me terror-struck, ever since,
whenever I am left without light even for an instant. I will tell you
the story, and let you judge for yourself.
"It was several years ago; in an old house we rented at that time, and
from which we removed soon after the event I am about to relate. I was
afraid of the dark, even then, and always left a night-light burning by
the side of my bed when I went to sleep. One night I woke up, feeling
the springs of the bed on which I was lying vibrate in a peculiar
manner, impossible to describe.
"Looking up, I saw, standing by the side of my bed, a young man,
dressed in rags, having a face ghastly white, and showing every
indication of dissipation. He was regarding me intently.
"I shall never forget the shock I received on beholding that figure;
not only because of the unexpected appearance; but because of the fact
that I could perceive the opposite wall and furniture _through_ the
body. I knew at once that I beheld a spirit; and my blood ran cold at
the thought. What I had dreaded all my life was at last fulfilled!
"My next thought was 'I am so glad the night-light is burning. What
should I do if I were in darkness?' As though the form read my
thoughts, and was intent on torturing me to the limit of endurance, it
leaned over, and the next instant had snuffed the candle! The phantom
and I were alone in the black darkness!
"Words cannot describe my feelings at that instant. The blood froze
in my veins, and the tongue clave to the roof of my mouth. I tried to
speak, but could not. I only held out one hand as if to ward off the
awful presence by pressing it away.
"The next instant I felt the bed-clothes gently turned down on the
further side of the bed, and partly pulled off me. The springs of the
bed were depressed, and I knew that the fearsome visitor was crawling
into bed! It would lie down by my side; perhaps touch me; perhaps--who
could tell? The agony of mind I experienced in those few moments I
shall never forget! My only wonder is that my reason did not give way!
"Then a curious thing happened. Even in the state of mind, as I was
then, I could perceive that the bed was gradually rising up again into
its normal position. The weight upon it was growing less and less.
Finally, it was again level, and I felt the bed clothes carefully
replaced over me. The phantom had withdrawn!
"For hours I lay awake, not daring to move. After what seemed a
century, the first faint shafts of light fell across the room,
betokening the welcome morn. Finally glorious day broke. Glorious
light! Hateful darkness! Cannot you see why I hate it so?"
But, fortunately, this evil and horrible side of ghost-land is not
universal.
Ghosts do not always present themselves as so formidable and gruesome!
Some of them prove helpful; others seem to wish to right a wrong; some
even seem to have a sense of humor! So there are all sorts of ghosts,
just as there are all sorts of people; and the variety is just as great
in the one case as in the other.
WHAT IS A GHOST?
But, after all, what _is_ a ghost? What do we mean by this? Where do
ghosts live, and how? What do they do with themselves? How do they
manifest? Why do they return? These are some of the questions which the
average man asks himself--unless he totally disbelieves in them.
Most men, it is true, disbelieve in ghosts--unless they have had some
experience to convince them to the contrary. Yet, after all, why should
they? As Mr. W. T. Stead once remarked:
"Real Ghost Stories! How can there be real ghost stories when there are
no real ghosts?
"But are there no real ghosts? You may not have seen one, but it does
not follow that therefore they do not exist. How many of us have seen
the microbe that kills? There are at least as many persons who testify
that they have seen apparitions as there are men of science who have
examined the microbe. You and I, who have seen neither, must perforce
take the testimony of others. The evidence for the microbe may be
conclusive, the evidence as to apparitions may be worthless; but in
both cases it is a case of testimony, not of personal experience."
The average conception of a Ghost is probably somewhat as follows:
That it is a thin, tall figure, wrapped in a sheet, walking about the
house, clanking chains behind it, and scaring out of his wits anyone
who sees it. According to this view, a ghost would be as material
and substantial a thing as a buzz-saw or a lap-dog, and exists just
as fully "in space." Such, however, is not the conception of the
ghost which modern science entertains. Many investigators who have
examined this question closely have come to the conclusion that
ghosts _do_ actually exist; but when we come to the more troublesome
question: _What are they?_ we are met at once with difficulties and
disagreements. The recent scientific theories and explanations of the
subject are complex and subtle; and necessitate a certain preliminary
knowledge on the part of the student in order for him to understand
them. I shall explain as briefly and clearly as possible exactly what
these theories are. For the moment, I wish to speak, first of all, of
the history of psychic investigation; and particularly that portion of
it which deals with apparitions or "ghost hunting."
HISTORIC INVESTIGATIONS
Here and there, serious investigators have always existed. In the
sixteenth century Dr. Glanvil pursued this study with great genius
and patience; Dr. Johnson also was a firm believer in the reality of
"ghosts"; Sir Walter Scott and others of his time were investigators,
the famous Dr. Perrier wrote a treatise on apparitions, and similar
investigations have been continued up to the present day. The first
organized and systematic attempt to solve the problem, and to find
out exactly _what ghosts are_, however, was made by the Society
for Psychical Research (S. P. R.) in 1882. Practically all the
investigations which have been carried on since then have led to
important results.
Soon after the above mentioned Society was founded, and material began
to be collected, it was found that many cases had to do with haunted
houses, many with apparitions, but the greater number of them hinged
around the one point--the coincidence of apparitions with the death
of the persons represented. An apparition of a certain person would
be seen in London, let us say; and some hours later a telegram would
arrive, conveying the news that this person had just been killed. When
the time was compared, it was found to agree exactly; the hour of the
death and that of the apparition tallying to the minute.
Chance, you say? Perhaps so. _One_ case of this character might be
explained in such manner; but could _fifty_? Could a _hundred_? It
became a question of statistics--of figures; these alone can answer our
question.
Before considering these, however, let us give a few examples of cases
of "death-coincidences," so that the reader may see the character of
the evidence presented. He may then appreciate the value of a great
mass of such evidence, when published _in extenso_.
DEATH-COINCIDENCES
The first case we take is from M. Flammarion's book, _The Unknown_ (p.
108), and is as follows:
"My mother ... who lived in Burgundy, heard one Tuesday, between nine
and ten o'clock, the door of the bedroom open and close violently. At
the same time, she heard herself called twice--'Lucie, Lucie!' The
following Tuesday, she heard that her uncle Clementin, who had always
had a great affection for her, had died that Tuesday morning, precisely
between nine and ten o'clock...."
In the following instance, the notification is in visual, instead of
auditory form, and is taken from the _Proceedings_, S. P. R., Vol. X.,
pp. 213-14:
"About the 14th of September, 1882, my sister and I felt worried
and distressed by hearing the 'death watch'; it lasted a whole day
and night. We got up earlier than usual the next morning, about six
o'clock, to finish some birthday presents for our mother. As my sister
and I were working and talking together, I looked up, and saw our young
acquaintance standing in front of me and looking at us. I turned to
my sister; she saw nothing. I looked again to where he stood; he had
vanished. We agreed not to tell any one....
"Some time afterwards we heard that our young acquaintance had either
committed suicide or had been killed; he was found dead in the woods,
twenty-four hours after landing. On looking back to my diary, I found
that the marks I made in it corresponded to the date of his death."
The following case is reported in Podmore's _Apparitions and Thought
Transference_, p. 265:
"The first Thursday of April, 1881, while sitting at tea with my back
to the window, and talking with my wife in the usual way, I plainly
heard a rap at the window, and, looking round, I said to my wife,
'Why, there's my grandmother,' and went to the door, but could not see
anyone; and still feeling sure it was my grandmother, and, knowing
that, though eighty-three years of age, she was very active and fond of
a joke, I went round the house, but could not see anyone. My wife did
not hear it. On the following Saturday, I had news that my grandmother
died in Yorkshire about half an hour before the time I heard the
rapping. The last time I saw her alive I promised, if well, I would
attend her funeral; that was some two years before. I was in good
health and had no trouble; age, twenty-six years. I did not know that
my grandmother was ill.
"REV. MATTHEW FROST."
Mrs. Frost writes:
"I beg to certify that I perfectly remember all the circumstances my
husband has named, but I heard and saw nothing myself."
The following case is from _Phantasms of the Living_, Vol. II., p. 50:
"On February 26th, 1850, I was awake, for I was to go to my
sister-in-law, and visiting was then an event for me. About two o'clock
in the morning my brother walked into our room (my sister's) and
stood beside my bed. I called to her, 'Here is ----.' He was at the
time quartered at Paisley, and a mail-car from Belfast passed about
that hour not more than a mile from our village.... He looked down on
us most lovingly, and kindly, and waved his hand, and he was gone! I
recollect it all as if it were only last night it occurred, and my
feeling of astonishment, not at his coming into the room at all, but
where he could have gone. At that very hour he died."
Mr. Gurney writes:
"We have confirmed the date of death in the Army List, and find from a
newspaper notice that the death took place in the early morning, and
was extremely sudden."
Cases such as the above could be multiplied into the hundreds; but it
is not necessary. For our present purposes, the above samples will at
least serve to show the character of these "death-coincidences," and
how accurate and how numerous they often are.
ARE THEY DUE TO CHANCE?
The cases of "death-coincidences" came in so thick and so fast that,
some time after its foundation, the Society for Psychical Research
published an enormous book in two volumes, called "Phantasms of
the Living," which contained some 702 cases of this character. The
possibility of "chance coincidence" was very carefully worked out; and
it was ascertained that the number of collected cases was many thousand
times more numerous than chance alone could be supposed to account for.
A "connection" of some sort was thought to be proved.
But objections at once began to be heard! "In order to prove your point
you must collect a greater number of cases than this; you must get more
facts before we can consider your point proved!"
So the investigators again set to work, and carried on a far more
extensive investigation, in several countries, covering a period of
several years. The results were the same. After collecting some 30,000
cases, and calculating the number of death-coincidences contained in
this number, it was again proved, and most conclusively, that the
number of coincidences was far more numerous than could be accounted
for by any theory of chance. Professor Sidgwick's Committee, therefore,
signed the following joint statement, at the conclusion of their
lengthy Report:
"_Between deaths and apparitions of the dying person a connection
exists which is not due to chance alone. This we hold as a proved
fact...._"
These are weighty words. They represent an important forward step in
our investigation of these involved and complex questions. _Something_
takes place at death, which serves to unite, in some sort of spiritual
bond, the dying and the still living relatives or friends. _What is_
this connection? In what may it be supposed to consist?
THE EXPLANATION
For an explanation, we must begin by going back to experimental
thought-transference. We know that it is possible, under certain
conditions, for one person to affect another, otherwise than through
the regular avenues of the five senses. This "telepathic" action
between mind and mind is now pretty well known, and operates more or
less throughout life. By means of this, it is occasionally possible for
one person to impress a scene or a picture upon the mind of another,
so that the other shall see before him, as it were, in space, a vivid
mental picture of the scene in the other's mind.
This being so, it seems plausible to suppose that it might be possible
to convey the impression or picture of _one's self_ to another--since
this may be supposed to be the most precise and best-known picture we
have. Would it not be possible to think of one's own appearance so
intensely as to cause a mental representation of it to appear before
another person, distant some miles away?
Apparently this _has_ been done, many times. "Experimental apparitions"
of this character have frequently been _induced_; accounts of a few of
which will be found in this volume. The picture is mental, in such a
case; it is an imaginative creation; it is a hallucination,--although
it was caused or created by another, distant mind. It was, it is true,
a hallucination; but as it was induced by telepathy, we have for such
apparitions the name of "telepathic hallucinations." It is this theory
of "telepathic hallucinations" which is invoked to explain many of
these cases of death-coincidences, or apparitions of the dying.
EXPERIMENTAL APPARITIONS
The following types of "experimental apparitions" are good examples of
the ability to induce a phantasmal form at a distance by "willing" to
do so. As to the nature of this figure: there is as yet no unanimity
of opinion--some authorities preferring to believe that such cases
represent merely an extension of the power of thought-transference,
known to us; others, on the contrary, contending that such cases prove
the existence and travelling powers of the "astral" or "spiritual
body." Of this, however, more later.
Here is a case of this nature, experienced by the English investigator,
the Rev. William Stainton Moses, who corroborates the following
account, which is furnished by the agent:--
"One evening I resolved to appear to Z., at some miles' distance. I did
not inform him beforehand of the intended experiment, but retired to
rest shortly before midnight, my thoughts intently fixed on Z., with
whose rooms and surroundings I was quite unacquainted. I soon fell
asleep, and woke next morning unconscious of anything having taken
place. On seeing Z. a few days afterwards, I inquired: 'Did anything
happen at your rooms on Saturday night?' 'Yes,' he replied, 'a great
deal happened. I had been sitting over the fire with M., smoking and
chatting. About 12:30 he rose to leave, and I let him out myself. I
returned to the fire to finish my pipe, when I saw you sitting in the
chair just vacated by him. I looked intently at you, and then took up
a newspaper to assure myself that I was not dreaming; but on laying it
down I saw you still there. While I gazed, without speaking, you faded
away.'"
In the case which follows, the initials only are used; but the writer
of the account was known to the officers of the S. P. R., who vouched
for the general trustworthiness of the writer:
"On a certain Sunday evening in November, 1881, having been reading
of the great power which the human will is capable of exercising, I
determined, with the whole force of my being, that I would be present
in spirit in the front bedroom of the second floor of a house situated
at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in which room slept two young ladies
of my acquaintance,--namely, Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C. V., aged
respectively twenty-five and eleven years. I was living at the time at
23 Kildare Gardens, at a distance of about three miles from Hogarth
Road, and I had not mentioned in any way my intention of trying this
experiment to either of the above ladies, for the simple reason that
it was only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that I made
up my mind to do so. The time at which I determined to be there was
one o'clock in the morning; and I had a strong intention of making
my presence perceptible. On the following Thursday I went to see the
ladies in question, and, in the course of my conversation (without any
allusion to the subject on my part), the elder one told me that on
the previous Saturday night she had been much terrified by perceiving
me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition
advanced towards her, and awoke her little sister, who also saw me.
"I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most
decidedly in the affirmative; and, upon my inquiring the time of the
occurrence, she replied, 'About one o'clock in the morning.'
"This lady at my request wrote down a statement of the event, and
signed it...."
Mr. Gurney (one of the authors of _Phantasms of the Living_) became
deeply interested in these experiments, and requested Mr. B. to notify
him in advance on the next occasion when he proposed to make his
presence known in this strange manner. Accordingly, March 22d, 1884, he
received the following letter:
"Dear Mr. Gurney:--I am going to try the experiment to-night of
making my presence perceptible at 44 Morland Square, at 12 P. M.
I will let you know the result in a few days.
Yours very sincerely, "S. H. B."
The next letter, which was written on April 3, contained the following
statement, prepared by the recipient, Miss L. S. Verity:
"On Saturday night, March 22, 1884, at about midnight, I had a distinct
impression that Mr. S. H. B. was present in my room, and I distinctly
saw him, being quite awake. He came toward me and stroked my hair.
I voluntarily gave him this information when he called to see me on
Wednesday, April 2, telling him the time and the circumstances of the
apparition without any suggestion on his part. The appearance in my
room was most vivid and quite unmistakable."
Miss A. S. Verity also furnishes this corroborative statement:
"I remember my sister telling me that she had seen S. H. B. and that he
touched her hair, before he came to see us on April 2."
The agent's statement of the affair is as follows:
"On Saturday, March 22, I determined to make my presence perceptible
to Miss V. at 44 Morland Square, Notting Hill, at twelve midnight; and
as I had previously arranged with Mr. Gurney that I should post him a
letter of the evening on which I tried my next experiment (stating the
time and other particulars) I sent him a note to acquaint him with the
above facts. About ten days afterwards I called upon Miss V., and she
voluntarily told me that on March 22, at twelve o'clock, midnight, she
had seen me so vividly in her room (whilst wide awake) that her nerves
had been much shaken, and she had been obliged to send for a doctor in
the morning."
These cases will at least prove the possibility of such a thing as
"experimental apparitions," and, explain them as we may, they are, at
all events, most interesting and significant. They prove the reality of
"telepathic phantasms"--of apparitions produced in another by the power
of mind. This is, at least, the modern conception of the facts.
TELEPATHIC HALLUCINATIONS
How may the theory be said to work? How can a telepathic impulse from a
distant mind cause a picture to appear in space, as it were, before the
recipient? Here is the last word of modern science in this direction;
here is the theory which has been advanced to explain puzzling cases of
this character.
When we look at and see an object, the sight-centers of the brain are
roused into activity; unless they are so aroused, we see nothing, and
whenever they are so aroused, _no matter from what cause_, we have the
sensation of sight. We _see_.
But we get no further than this; we do not reason about the thing seen,
or analyze; or think to ourselves, "this is a red apple; I like red
apples," etc. No, we only see or perceive the object. All the reasoning
_about_ the object takes place in the higher thought-centres of the
brain. A diagram will, perhaps, help to make all this clear.
[Illustration]
When light-waves coming from the eye, A, travel along the optic nerves,
and excite into activity the sight-centers--at B--we have the sensation
of sight, as before said. Nerve currents then travel _up_ the nerves,
going from B to C, and in these higher centers, they are associated and
analyzed, and we then "reflect" upon the thing seen, etc. This is the
normal process of sight.
Now, if the eye, or the optic nerves, or the sight-centers themselves
become diseased, we still have the sensation of seeing, though there
is no material object there; we have ordinary hallucinations of all
kinds--delirium tremens, etc. If the sight-centers are stimulated _as
much_ as they would be by the incoming nerve stimuli from the eye, we
have "full-blown hallucinations."
Now, it is obvious that one method of stimulating the sight-centers
into activity is for a nervous current to come _downwards_, along the
nerves running from C to B. It is probable that something of this sort
takes place when we experience "memory pictures." If you shut your eyes
and picture the face of some dear friend, you will be able to see it
before you more or less clearly. The higher psychical centers of the
brain have excited the sight-centers into a certain activity; and these
have given us the sensation of dim, inward sight. If the stimulus were
stronger, we should have cases of intense "visualization"; such as the
figures which occur in the crystal ball, etc.--they being doubtless
produced in this manner.
Although the "sluice-gates," so to speak, running from C to B are,
therefore, always open _slightly_; they are never open wide; it
is not natural for them to be so. But if, under any great stress,
thought or emotion, the downward nervous current were as strong as
that ordinarily running from A to B; then we should appear to see as
clearly; the object would appear just as solid and real and outstanding
to us as any other entity. We should experience a "full-blown
hallucination."
All this being so, it is almost natural to suppose that _one_ method
by which these psychical sluice-gates could be more widely opened
would be under the impact of _a telepathic impulse_. If we assume that
this in some manner arouses into instantaneous and great activity the
higher psychical centers (C), these would very probably communicate
this impulse to B--downwards, along the nerve-tracts connecting the
two (or to the hearing centers, when we should experience an auditory
hallucination, and hear our name spoken, etc.). In this way we could
account for a telepathic hallucination, originating in this manner; and
it is surely to be supposed that, at the moment of death, some peculiar
quickening of the mental and spiritual life takes place--the peculiar
flashes of memory by those drowning, etc., seeming to show this.
So, then, we arrive at a sort of explanation of many of these cases
of apparitions, occurring at the moment of death; for we have shown
them to be "telepathic hallucinations." This is also the correct
explanation, doubtless, for many cases in which apparitions of the
living have been seen--in which a phantasm of a living person has
appeared to another, during sleep, or in hypnotic trance, etc.
But how about those ghosts which appear some time after death? They, at
least, cannot be explained by any such theory. What has been said by
way of explanation of these cases?
It will be remembered that telepathy is the basis of the explanation
thus far. Let us extend this. We have only to suppose that the spirit
of man survives the shock of death, and that it can continue to exert
its powers and capacities also. For, if a living mind can influence the
living by telepathy; why not a "dead" one? Why should not the surviving
spirit of man continue to influence us, by telepathy? If they could,
we should still have cases of telepathic hallucinations--induced from
the mind of a discarnate, not an incarnate, spirit. The "ghost" might
still be a telepathic hallucination. And if several persons saw the
figure at once, we should, on this theory, have a case of collective
hallucination--in which one mind affected all the rest equally and
simultaneously.
GHOSTS WHICH MOVE MATERIAL OBJECTS
Such is the theory--rather far-fetched, it is true; but certainly the
most rational and common-sense so far advanced to explain many of the
facts. It is probable, however, that this explanation will not serve
to explain _all_ of them. Thus, in those cases where the apparition
moved a material object, opened a door, etc., such a theory would
have to be abandoned, for the simple reason that a mental concept,
an hallucination, cannot open doors and move objects! There must be
an outstanding, material entity to effect this. There must be a real
ghost. And in those cases where the apparition has been seen by several
persons at once, or even photographed, it seems more reasonable to
suppose that a material, space-occupying body was present rather than
to assume that the various witnesses or the camera were hallucinated.
In the following cases, for example, the apparition performs a definite
physical action--snuffs a candle with its fingers, an action which a
pure hallucination could hardly be supposed to perform. The account
is by the Rev. D. W. G. Gwynne, M.I., and is printed in _Phantasms
of the Living_, Vol. II., pp. 202-3. After telling of certain minor
phenomena, he proceeds:
"I now come to the mutual experience of something that is as fresh in
its impression as if it were the occurrence of yesterday. During the
night I became aware of a draped figure passing across the foot of
the bed towards the fireplace. I had the impression that the arm was
raised, pointing with the hand towards the mantlepiece, on which a
night-light was burning. Mrs. Gwynne at this moment seized my arm, and
the light _was extinguished_. Notwithstanding, I distinctly saw the
figure returning towards the door, and being under the impression that
one of our servants had found her way into the room, I leaped out of
bed to intercept the intruder, but found, and saw, nothing...."
[Mrs. Gwynne confirms the story, adding, "I distinctly saw the
hand of the phantom placed over the night-light, which was at once
extinguished."]
PHOTOGRAPHS OF GHOSTS
Again, it is claimed that ghosts have sometimes been photographed,
though very rarely. In a number of cases, attempts have been made to
photograph ghosts seen in haunted-houses; but, though the figures
have been seen by all present, the photographic plate has failed to
record any impression of the phantom. In other cases, on the contrary,
definite impressions _have_ been obtained; and, though there is
doubtless much fraud among professional mediums, who claim to produce
"spirit photographs," there are many cases on record in which no
professional medium was employed, and in which faces were certainly
seen upon the developed plate. Experiments have also been made in
photographing the body at the moment of death; to see if any impression
could be made upon the plate--by the soul, in its passage from the
body; and, though many of these have proved negative, Dr. Baraduc,
of Paris, has obtained a number of photographs which have never been
explained. Again, numerous researches in the region of so-called
"thought photography" have given some basis for the belief that thought
may be, under certain conditions, photographed--as for example, in the
experiments of Dr. Ochorowicz and others. It may be said, therefore,
that some progress is being made in this direction by psychic
investigators (particularly by the French observers, who are far ahead
of the rest of the world in these branches of psychic investigation),
and that, with increased sensitiveness of film and plate, and greater
perfection of lens and camera, it is to be hoped that the time is not
far distant when it will be possible to photograph the unseen just as
we photograph living persons.
There are "ghosts," therefore, which are hallucinations; and there are
ghosts which are genuine phantasms--the "real article." It becomes a
question, in each instance, of sifting the evidence; finding out _which
they are_. Yet, if there are real, objective, outstanding ghosts, how
can we explain them? In what do they consist? In short, we are back to
our original question: What are ghosts?
THE "DOUBLE," AND THE SPIRITUAL BODY
Before we can answer this question satisfactorily, we must consider
one or two preliminary questions. First of all, we must speak of the
"double"--the astral or spiritual or ethic body, which resides in man,
as well as his physical body.[2]
[2] Theosophists distinguish between all these various bodies;
psychic students strive, for the most part, only to prove the
objective existence of any one of them.
St. Paul constantly emphasized the fact that man has a material body
and a "spiritual body." This inner body is the exact shape of the
physical body--its counterpart, its double. In life, under ordinary
conditions, the two are inseparable; but at death, the severance takes
place and man continues to live on in this etheric envelope. This
inner body has been studied very carefully by students of the occult;
and a good deal is now known about it--its comings and goings, its
composition, and the method of its departure at death. For our present
purposes, however, it is enough to say that such a body exists, and
that it is the vehicle man continues to use and manipulate, after his
death and his departure from this plane.
It so happens that, under certain peculiar conditions, the inner body
of man is capable of being detached or separated from the physical
body. This usually occurs in trance, sleep, hypnotic and mesmeric
states, etc.; or may be performed "experimentally," by some who have
cultivated this power in themselves. When this body goes on such
"excursions"--leaving the physical body practically dead, to all
appearances--it may be seen by those in its immediate vicinity, just
as a material body would be--if they are sufficiently sensitive or
receptive.
The following interesting case, (recorded in _Phantasms of the Living_,
Vol. I, pp. 225-26) is a good example of the apparent traveling of the
body to another place, and the perception of that body by a second
person, who happens to be there. Two individuals, at all events, shared
in the experience, which is otherwise hard to account for. The case is
recorded by the Rev. P. H. Newnham, and is as follows:
"In March, 1854, I was up at Oxford, keeping my last term, in lodgings.
I was subject to violent neuralgic headaches, which always culminated
in sleep. One evening, about 8 p.m., I had an unusually violent one;
when it became unendurable, about 9 p.m., I went into my bedroom, and
flung myself, without undressing, on the bed, and soon fell asleep.
"I then had a singularly clear and vivid dream, all the incidents of
which are as clear in my memory as ever. I dreamed that I was stopping
with the family of a lady who subsequently became my wife. All the
younger ones had gone to bed, and I stopped chatting to the father and
mother, standing up by the fireplace. Presently I bade them good-night,
took my candle, and went off to bed. On arriving in the hall, I
perceived that my fiancee had been detained downstairs, and was only
then near the top of the staircase. I rushed upstairs, overtook her on
the top step, and passed my two arms around her waist, under her arms,
from behind. Although I was carrying my candle in the left hand, when
I ran upstairs, this did not, in my dream, interfere with this gesture.
"On this I woke, and the clock in the house struck ten almost
immediately afterwards.
"So strong was the impression of the dream that I wrote a detailed
account of it the next morning to my fiancee.
"_Crossing_ my letter, _not_ in answer to it, I received a letter from
the lady in question: 'Were you thinking about me very specially last
night, just about ten o'clock? For, as I was going upstairs to bed, I
distinctly heard your footsteps on the stairs, and felt you put your
arms round my waist.'"
[Mrs. Newnham wrote a confirmation of this account, which was also
published.]
WHAT HAPPENS AT THE MOMENT OF DEATH
In all these cases, of course, the psychic body of the subject returns
and re-animates the physical body; for if it did not do so, death would
take place. When death does actually take place, this is what occurs;
and psychics and clairvoyants assert that they are able to see and
follow this process perfectly; and many of them have described exactly
what takes place at the moment of death. The following description,
for example, given by Andrew Jackson Davis, is taken from his _Death,
and the After Life_, pp. 15-16, and is as follows:
"Suppose the person is now dying. It is to be a rapid death. The feet
first grow cold. The clairvoyant sees over the head what may be called
a magnetic halo--an etherial emanation, in appearance golden, and
throbbing as though conscious. The body is now cold up to the knees
and elbows, and the emanation has ascended higher in the air. The legs
are cold to the hips and the arms to the shoulders; and the emanation,
though it has not risen higher in the room, is more expanded. The
death-coldness steals over the breast and round on either side, and
the emanation has attained a higher position nearer the ceiling. The
person has ceased to breathe, the pulse is still, and the emanation
is elongated and fashioned in the outline of a human form. Beneath,
it is connected with the brain. The head of the person is internally
throbbing--a slow, deep throb--not painful but like the beat of the
sea. Hence the thinking faculties are rational, while nearly every part
of the person is dead. Owing to the brain's momentum, I have seen a
dying person, even at the last feeble pulsebeat, rouse impulsively and
rise up in bed to converse with a friend, but the next instant he was
gone--his brain being the last to yield up the life principle.
"The golden emanation, which extends up midway to the ceiling, is
connected to the brain by a very fine life-thread. Now the body of the
emanation ascends. Then appears something white and shining, like a
human head; next, in a very few moments, a faint outline of the face
divine, then the fair neck and beautiful shoulders; then, in rapid
succession, come all parts of the new body down to the feet--a bright,
shining image, a little smaller than its physical body, but a perfect
prototype or reproduction in all except its disfigurements. The fine
life-thread continues attached to the old brain. The next thing is
the withdrawal of the electric principle. When this thread snaps the
spiritual body is free, and prepared to accompany its guardians to the
Summer-Land. Yes, there is a spiritual body; it is sown in dishonor and
raised in brightness."
It is doubtless this spiritual body which is the true cause of many
apparitions--of many ghost stories. It is this body which is seen by
the seer or percipient in many a ghost story; it is this body which
moves objects and touches the individual who sees the ghost. This body
is detached at death, as we have seen, and afterwards is free to rove
at its own free will. Apparitions of the dead might thus be accounted
for; while all those cases of apparitions of the dying which are with
difficulty explained as due to pure telepathy might also thus find
their explanation. The spiritual body, freed at that moment, would
manifest its presence to the distant percipient as it did after death.
So far so good, but how about apparitions of the living? How explain
those cases in which the apparition of a living person has been seen,
when the spiritual body is supposedly safely attached to the physical
body?
Many of them are doubtless cases of telepathy; but in those cases
which seem to demand the presence of a body of some sort, we may
suppose that the spiritual body may become detached, at times, under
certain peculiar conditions, from the material body which it inhabits
and animates, and can then manifest independently at a distance. The
following cases are illustrative, apparently, of this fact; showing us
that the "etheric body" can manifest on occasion at will at a distance
from the physical body.
HOW THE SOUL MAY LEAVE THE BODY
"... I put out the light and returned, but no sooner had I done this
than ... I could feel a creeping sensation moving up my legs. I got up
and lit the gas and went back to bed; with pillows arranged in such
a way as to make me comfortable. In a comparatively short time, all
circulation ceased in my legs, and they were as cold as those of the
dead. The creeping sensation began in the lower part of the body, and
that also became cold.... There was no sensation of pain or even of
physical discomfort. I would pinch my legs with my thumb and finger,
and there was no feeling or no indication of blood whatever. I might as
well have pinched a piece of rubber so far as the sensation produced
was concerned. As the movement continued upward, all at once there
came a flashing of lights in my eyes and a ringing in my ears, and
it seemed for an instant as though I had become unconscious. When I
came out of this state, I seemed to be walking in the air. No words
can describe the exhilaration and freedom that I experienced. At no
time in my life had my mind been so clear and so free. Just then I
thought of a friend who was more than a thousand miles distant. Then
I seemed to be traveling with great rapidity through the atmosphere
about me. Everything was light and yet it was not the light of the
day or the sun, but, I might say, a peculiar light of its own, such
as I have never known. It could not have been a minute after that I
thought of my friends, before I was conscious of standing in a room
where the gas-jets were turned up, and my friend was standing with his
back toward me, but, suddenly turning and seeing me, said: 'What in
the world are you doing here? I thought you were in Florida'--and he
started to come toward me. While I heard the words distinctly, I was
unable to answer. An instant later I was gone; and the consciousness
of the memorable things that transpired that memorable night has never
been forgotten. I seemed to leave the earth, and everything pertaining
to it, and enter a condition of life of which it is absolutely
impossible to give here any thought I had concerning it, because there
was no correspondence to anything I had ever seen or heard or known of
in any way. The wonder and the joy of it was unspeakable; and I can
readily understand now what Paul meant when he said 'I knew a man,
whether in the body or out of it I know not, who was caught up to the
third heaven, and saw things which it is not possible (lawful) to
utter.'
"In this latter experience there was neither consciousness of time
nor of space; in fact, it can be described more as a consciousness of
elastic feeling than anything else. It came to me after a time that I
could _stay_ there if I so desired, but with that thought came also the
consciousness of the friends on earth and the duties there required of
me. The desire to stay was intense, but in my mind I clearly reasoned
over it--whether I should gratify my desire or return to my work on
earth. Four times my thought and reason told me that my duties required
me to return, but I was so dissatisfied with each conclusion that
I finally said: 'Now I will think and reason this matter out once
more, and whatever conclusion I reach I will abide by.' I reached the
same conclusion, and had not much more than reached it when I became
conscious of being in a room and looking down on a body propped up in
bed, which I recognized as my own! I cannot tell what strange feelings
came over me. This body, to all intents and purposes, looked to be
dead. There was no indication of life about it, and yet here I was
apart from the body, with my mind perfectly clear and alert, and the
consciousness of another body to which matter of any kind offered no
resistance.
"After what might have been a minute or two, looking at the body, I
began to try and control it, and in a very short time all sense of
separation from the physical body ceased, and I was only conscious of
a directed effort toward its use. After what seemed to be quite a long
time, I was able to move, got up from the bed, dressed myself, and went
down to breakfast....
"I may add that the friend referred to as having been seen by me
that night was also distinctly conscious of my presence and made
the exclamation mentioned. We both wrote the next day, relating the
experience of the night, and the letters corroborating the incident
crossed in the post."
Such strange doings certainly tend to prove that the human spirit can
leave its body and rove abroad, at times; and if this is the case, it
shows us that our body is far more detachable than we usually suppose;
and hence that it can probably continue to exist after the death of the
physical body, when it is detached altogether. Once this is proved, all
objection to the reality and existence of "objective" ghosts will have
been done away with.
THEORIES OF HAUNTED HOUSES
If we grant that certain houses may be "haunted," in the sense that
they may be the centers of influences and forces as yet unseen and
unknown, the question is: How explain such cases? What hypotheses can
we advance to explain cases of haunted houses, which will recognize the
reality of the phantom witnessed therein, and attempt to explain them
as rationally as possible? Four main theories have been advanced by way
of explanation, which I shall briefly outline.
(1). There is the theory that the figures seen in houses of this nature
are genuine, outstanding entities--real beings, which are just as real,
though less solid and tangible, as any of the living inhabitants of the
house. This is, of course, the popular conception of the ghosts seen in
haunted houses, and it must be admitted that such a theory covers and
explains the facts more completely and fully than any other. There are
also many facts telling in its favor. For instance, when two persons
see a figure from different angles or viewpoints; and one describes
it in profile, while the other describes it as presenting a full face
likeness; and if this is the angle in each case from which a real
figure would naturally be seen, this surely seems to indicate that a
solid form of some sort was present.
Again, when three or four or more people see a figure at the same time,
it is surely a strain upon our credulity to believe that a number of
persons were similarly "hallucinated" at precisely the same time and in
the same manner; and easier to believe that they all saw a figure at
the same time, though in differing degrees of vividness and detail.
Thirdly, we have the evidence from photography. In some instances,
these figures have been photographed; and though there is doubtless
much fraud in this connection, there is evidence that, in certain
cases, genuine photographs of this nature have been taken. This is
discussed elsewhere in this volume, however.
Fourthly, we have the behavior of animals, in haunted houses. They
often appear to see figures visible or invisible to others present at
the time--bark at them, rub against them, stare at them, act as though
terrified at what they see, etc. This will be noticed in many of the
stories; and can be explained only with difficulty if we are to believe
that the figures seen are merely hallucinations.
THE GHOSTS OF ANIMALS, ETC.
I have elsewhere spoken of the apparent ability of animals to see
phantasmal forms and figures. The reverse of this is also true. Ghosts
of animals have been seen--spectral dogs, cats, horses as well as human
beings. These apparitions are very perplexing, and raise the question
of the immortality of animals--a very vexed question, which has given
rise to much discussion. Mr. H. Rider Haggard records the case of his
own dog, whose apparition he saw at the very moment that the dog was
killed by an express train some miles away. Did the animal succeed
in affecting his master by telepathy? If not, why the coincidence? I
myself have recorded a case in which a (real) cat spat at a phantom
dog, seen independently by a clairvoyant, who had described it a
few moments before to a group of spectators. Such cases are very
interesting. They tend to prove that dogs, cats, horses and other
animals also survive death--a conclusion which is certainly the most
humane and logical to many minds.
In addition to these animal apparitions, there are also grotesque,
horrible, monstrous and undefinable ghosts. One or two cases of this
character are described in this book. Sometimes the "seer" sees
something awful, but cannot describe in words what it is. Many of the
phantoms of the imaginative type are of this character. Again, there
are grave-yard ghosts; banshees, gnomes, elementals, pixies, fairies,
brownies, nature-spirits, hobgoblins, sylphs, salamanders, dragons,
vampires, wraiths, corpse-candles, and many other awful beings which
have been described from time to time in the past. We need not consider
these in a book of this character, however. But, to return to our
argument for the objective reality of "ghosts."
Fifthly, we have those cases in which the apparition has produced
a physical effect in the material world--snuffed a light, opened a
door, pulled back the bed-curtains, etc. A hallucinatory figure could
not do this. It has been suggested that all this is only a part of
the hallucination, but when the thing is found to have been moved in
reality, we must explain this somehow; for otherwise how did it change
its place?
Sixthly, we have cases in which the same apparition has been seen by
several separate and independent persons in the same room or house,
and afterwards they have recognized the features of this person in
a photograph shown them--the photograph of the person supposed to
haunt that particular house. If we were to believe that a simple
hallucination caused the figure, how account for this identification?
Surely the theory is far-fetched!
For all these reasons, therefore, and others it would be possible
to mention, there is much to be said in favor of this theory of
haunted houses; the theory which says that the figures seen are real,
semi-material entities.
THE CLOTHES OF GHOSTS
(2). The second view, opposed to that mentioned above, is this: Someone
living in a house has experienced a hallucination, and then seen the
same thing over and over again, by reason of auto-suggestion; or, if he
moves away, and another tenant takes the house in turn, the thoughts
of this second tenant are influenced, through thought-transference,
by the first tenant, who broods and thinks over his experiences in
the "haunted house," wonders whether the people now living in it
are experiencing phenomena, etc. In this way, the minds of those
living in the house are constantly influenced by thought-transference
by living minds; and hallucinatory figures are produced in them,
just as the picture of a playing card is induced in experimental
thought-transference.
There are two things to be said in favor of such a theory. In the first
place, we have the analogy which telepathic experiments give us, in
which certain visual images are undoubtedly transmitted from one mind
to another; and it is natural to assume that an extension of this same
process might account for many of the phantasmal forms seen in haunted
houses, as explained elsewhere.
In the second place, we immediately surmount the difficulty presented
by the ghost's _clothes_. This is a stumbling-block to many
investigators. However much we might believe that an etheric or astral
or spiritual body might continue to persist after death, it is hard to
believe that the clothes of the person who died also had "spiritual
counterparts," and returned with him, to visit the earth and the scenes
of former joys and miseries! We seldom read of a ghost without clothes;
nude ghosts are not the fashion! Yet if we cannot believe this, how are
we to explain this difficulty--and the fact that ghosts wear ghostly
garments?
If the ghost were a hallucination, we could understand all this easily
enough. The clothes were imaginary, just as the figure was; they formed
part of the mental image, just like the figures seen in dreams, etc.
This, therefore, is one very strong point in favor of this hypothesis;
but if the ghost is a real, outstanding entity, how account for his
clothes?
Several tentative explanations have been forthcoming. In the first
place, it has been suggested that all ghosts are in reality partial
"materializations" and that it is possible for a spirit to materialize
and form drapery as well as solid flesh and bone. Both are a sort of
condensation of matter, in varying degrees.
Again, it has been suggested that a spirit has the power to create
objects by the power of will; by merely thinking and willing to do so.
In this way, man would be a real creator, in a miniature scale, and
certain analogies could be found for this in the material world. The
returning spirit would desire to return clothed; and this very desire
would create the fitting garb. Other theories have been advanced, but
the above are the simplest and most intelligible, and are all we need
consider at present.
All these difficulties, however, tell against the substantiality of
ghosts; and in favor of this second theory of haunted houses.
TELEPATHY FROM THE DEAD
(3). The third theory which has been advanced, is an extension of the
second. Thought-transference is still the agency invoked to explain
the facts--but from the minds of dead, and not living persons. That
is, assuming telepathy to be true, and possible between living minds;
and assuming that individual consciousness survives the change called
death; we can readily imagine that those who have "passed over" might
affect and influence the living by thought-transference also, just as
they did in life. On this theory, therefore, the ghost would still
represent a hallucination; a mental or imaginary figure, and it would
still be induced by telepathy from a distant mind; but that mind would
be that of a so-called dead person. After death, we might suppose, this
person would be thinking or dreaming over the past events; the scenes
of his joys and sorrows; and these dreams would tend to influence the
minds of those still living, and cause them to see the figures seen.
The figures, on this theory, would be hallucinatory, but they would
have a real, objective basis and starting-point for all that; and, as
such, would represent the continued existence and activity on the part
of the dead.
Against this ingenious theory may be urged all those arguments which
have been cited in favor of the materiality of apparitions.
THE PSYCHIC ATMOSPHERE
(4). A fourth theory is that which says that some _subtle psychic
atmosphere_ is present in certain houses; and that this "atmosphere"
affects and influences all who live within them, just as their physical
atmosphere would, only in a different manner and degree. Everyone has
doubtless experienced this atmosphere in certain houses, if they are
at all sensitive. They either "like" a house or "dislike" it--for no
apparent reason. Some houses rest and refresh you; others irritate you,
etc. This theory contends that every living human being is constantly
giving off a peculiar vital emanation or aura or effluence; and that
this charges-up or impregnates the material objects in his immediate
neighborhood, which soak it up like a sponge, and retain it after being
removed from its presence. It is because of this fact that articles
presented to trance mediums often recall the person to whom they
belonged; it is because of this that "psychometry" is possible--that
is, the ability of some persons to give the past history of an object
by merely handling it; and it is because of this that certain houses
become so charged with this magnetic aura, or whatever it may be, that
they remain "charged" for some time; and, in discharging, create
psychic disturbances and impressions which are seen or experienced as
phantasmal appearances.
The chief objection to this theory is that it is difficult to see how
this general and impersonal "charging" process can create definite and
clear-cut forms, possessing all the appearances of reality. Doubtless
each theory contains much truth; and haunted houses represent, in
many cases, a combination of _all_ these causes, working together and
combining into one complex and unfortunately ill-understood whole. It
is the duty of the future to disentangle this maze, as best it can; and
explain the various factors which go to make up a haunted house of this
character.
FORMS CREATED BY WILL
(5). Besides these theories, another might be suggested, which
has never so far been advanced, so far as I am aware. It is that
the phantasmal forms seen in haunted houses are real substantial
_creations_, manufactured by the thoughts or will of the discarnate
spirit, who fashions it out of "such stuff as dreams are made of." It
has been said that "thoughts are things," and many believe that this
is literally true. Certain it is that a limited number of peculiarly
constructed persons can produce phenomena which seem to be solid
creations of the will. So, if thought could ever be proved to be
really creative; if it could not only _formulate_ but _objectify_ and
_project into space_ images and forms, we should have here a rational
explanation of many ghosts, as well as of their behavior. And just here
a few words as to this latter may not be out of place.
It has often been objected that ghosts cannot be realities; they cannot
be real spirits, for the reason that they act in such a senseless
manner. They seldom speak or reply, when spoken to. They seldom have
any definite purpose. In short, they betray no intelligence. This being
so, they must be hallucinations and not the realities they claim to be!
The answer to this objection is found in the following consideration.
Even granting all this to be true, many believing in ghosts do not for
an instant contend that such ghosts represent the actual person the
figure symbolises. It is a mere projection; a shell; a form created
by the discarnate spirit, a resemblance, a phantasm. The central
consciousness which animated and still animates that person is not _in_
the ghostly form, but elsewhere. The phantasm represents, merely, a
sort of impersonal wraith, and, as such, cannot be expected to possess
intelligence or human characteristics. None are present within it.
It is a very different thing from the real person it represents. The
insipid and unintelligent behavior of ghosts, therefore, is only what
we should expect. This fact is no argument against their reality, when
rightly understood and interpreted.
PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS
In addition to haunted houses of this type, there are others, which
must be referred to very briefly. Thus, in some cases, no figures have
been seen, but remarkable sounds have been heard--sounds which have
never been accounted for. Bangs, knocks, monotonous reading aloud,
whispering, footsteps, etc., are some of the noises and sounds which
have been heard in this way, and their origin often remains a mystery.
It would take too long to discuss the various explanatory theories
which have been advanced by psychic students to account for these
sounds.
In other types of haunted houses, physical manifestations take place,
though nothing unusual is either seen or heard. Thus, in one case
recorded by Lombroso (_After Death: What?_) numbers of bottles
were broken one after the other, for no apparent cause, when he was
actually looking at them. In still other cases, furniture has been
upset, crockery broken, doorbells rung, etc., by no visible agency.
John Wesley was persecuted in this manner for several years; and the
reason was never discovered. Such cases are technically known as
"poltergeists," and may be found in abundance in the "history of the
supernatural."
CAN HAUNTED HOUSES BE "CURED"?
One question of considerable interest remains. It is this: Can
so-called Haunted Houses be _cured_? Many of those who live in houses
of this character would like to have these influences removed; but are
unable to rid themselves of them. Can this be done?
In some cases, this has doubtless been accomplished; while in others it
has failed. We know too little as yet to lay down any arbitrary laws
or rules which may be followed with safety in cases of this character.
Sometimes one method succeeds, while another fails. I have known of
cases where "exorcism" worked a complete cure; of others in which it
failed miserably. I have known of cases in which suggestion, rightly
applied, rid the house of its ghost; in other instances, no result was
produced by similar methods! In a few instances mediums and psychics
have been able to assist; in others their presence only seemed to
make matters worse. We can but experiment and learn. Those who may be
more interested in this aspect of the question will find it treated
in Chapter XV. of my book "_The Coming Science_," which is devoted to
"Haunted Houses and their Cure."
CHAPTER II
PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD--I.
In the following Chapter, I shall give a number of cases in which
"Ghosts," or "Phantasms of the Dead," as they are called, have appeared
to one or more persons at one time; sometimes telling them something
they did not know; sometimes moving material objects in the room;
sometimes pulling the bed-clothes off, etc. Nearly all these cases are
well authenticated, and have been narrated at first-hand. Many of them
have the corroborative testimony of several other persons, who also saw
the phantasmal figure, or in some way shared in the experience. I shall
begin with--
A RUSSIAN GHOST
The following story is vouched for by Mr. W. D. Addison, of Riga, and
sent by him to Mr. W. T. Stead, who published it in _Borderland_:
"It was in February, 1884, that the incidents I am about to relate
occurred to me, and the story is well-known to my immediate friends.
"Five weeks previously my wife had presented me with our first baby,
and our house being a small one, I had to sleep on a bed made up in
the drawing room--a spacious but cozy apartment, and the last place in
which one would expect ghosts to select for their wanderings.
"On the night in question I retired to my couch soon after ten, and
fell asleep almost the moment I was between the sheets.
"Instead of sleeping as, I am thankful to say, is my habit, straight
through till morning, I woke up after a short dreamless sleep with
the dim consciousness upon me that some one had called me by name. I
was just turning the idea over in my mind when all doubts were solved
by my hearing my name pronounced in a faint whisper, 'Willy.' Now the
nurse who was in attendance on the baby, and who slept in the dressing
room adjoining our bedroom, had been ill for the past few days, and on
the previous evening my wife had come and asked me to assist her with
the baby. As soon, therefore, as I heard this whisper, I turned round
thinking, 'Ah, it is the baby again.'
"The room had three windows in it, the night was moonless but starlit;
there was snow on the ground, and therefore, 'snowlight,' and the
blinds being up the room was by no means dark.
"The first thing I noticed on turning round was the figure of a
woman close to the foot of the bed, and whom (following the bent of
my thoughts) I supposed to be my wife. 'What is up?' I asked, but
the figure remained silent and motionless, and my eyes being more
accustomed to the dimness, I noticed that it had a gray looking shawl
over its head and shoulders, and that it was too short in stature to be
my wife. I gazed at it silently, wondering who it could be; apparitions
and ghosts were far from my thoughts, and the mistiness of the outlines
of this silent figure did not strike me at the moment as it did
afterwards.
"I again addressed it, this time in the language of the country, 'What
do you want?' Again no answer. And now it occurred to me that our
servant girl sometimes walked in her sleep, and that this was she.
Behind the head of my bed stood a small table, and I reached round for
the match-box which was on it, never removing my eyes from the supposed
somnambulist. The match-box was now in my hands, but just as I was
taking out a match, the figure, to my astonishment, seemed to rise up
from the floor, and move backwards toward the end window; at the same
time it faded rapidly and became blurred with the gray light streaming
in at the window, and 'ere I could strike the match it was gone. I lit
the candle, jumped out of bed and ran to the door: it was fastened! To
the left of the drawing room there was a boudoir, separated only by a
curtain, this room was empty too, and the door likewise fastened.
"I rubbed my eyes. I was puzzled. It struck me now for the first time
that the figure was hazy looking, also that my wife was the only person
who called me 'Willy,' and certainly the only person who could give the
word its English pronunciation. I first searched both drawing room and
boudoir, and then, opening the door, stepped into the passage, and went
to my wife's door and listened. The baby was crying and my wife was up,
so I knocked and was admitted. Knowing her to be strong minded and not
nervous, I quietly related my experience. She expressed astonishment,
and asked if I was not afraid to return to my bed in the drawing room.
However, I was not, and after chatting for a few moments went back
to my quarters, fastened the door, and getting into bed, thought the
whole matter over very quietly. I could think of no explanation of the
occurrence, and, feeling sleepy, blew out the light and was soon sound
asleep again.
"After a short but sound and dreamless slumber, I was again awakened,
this time with my face towards the middle window; and there, close up
against it, was the figure again, and owing to its propinquity to the
light, it appeared to be a very dark object.
"I at once reached out for the matches, but in doing so upset the
table, and down it went with my candlestick, my watch, keys, etc.,
making a terrific crash. As before, I had kept my eyes fixed on the
figure, and I now observed that, whatever it was, it was advancing
straight towards me, and in another moment retreat to the door would be
cut off. It was not a comfortable idea to cope with the unknown in the
dark, and in an instant I had seized the bed-clothes, and grasping a
corner of them in each hand, and holding them up before me, I charged
straight at the figure. (I suppose I thought that, by smothering the
head of my supposed assailant, I could best repel the coming attack.)
"The next moment I had landed on my knees on a sofa by the window with
my arms on the window-sill, and with the consciousness that 'it' was
now behind me--I having passed through it. With a bound I faced round,
and was immediately immersed in a darkness impalpable to the touch,
but so dense that it seemed to be weighing me down and squeezing me
from all sides. I could not stir; the bed-clothes which I had seized
as described hung over my left arm, the other was free, but seemed
pressed down by a benumbing weight. I essayed to cry for help, but
realized for the first time in my life what it means for the 'tongue
to cleave to the roof of the mouth'; my tongue seemed to have become
dry and to have swelled to a thickness of some inches; it stuck to
the roof of my mouth, and I could not ejaculate a syllable. At last,
after an appalling struggle, I succeeded in uttering, and I know that
disjointed words, half prayer, half execrations of fear, left my lips,
then my mind seemed to make one frantic effort, there seemed to come a
wrench like an electric shock and my limbs were free; it was as tho' I
tore myself out of something. In a few seconds I had reached and opened
the door and was in the passage, listening to the hammerings of my
heart-beats. All fear was gone from me, but I felt as though I had run
miles for my life and that another ten yards of it would have killed me.
"I again went to the door of my wife's room, and, hearing that she was
up with the baby, I knocked and she opened. She is a witness to the
state I was in: the drops rolling down my face, my hair was damp, and
the beatings of my heart were audible some paces off. I can offer no
explanations of what I saw, but as soon as my story became known, the
people who had occupied the house previously told me that they had once
put a visitor in that same drawing room, who had declared the room to
be haunted and had refused to stay in it...."
GRASPED BY A SPIRIT HAND
The following account is vouched for by Major C. G. MacGregor, Ireland,
who writes as follows:
"In the end of the year 1871 I went over from Scotland to pay a short
visit to a relative living in a square on the north side of Dublin.
"In January, 1872, the husband of my relative, then in his
eighty-fourth year, was seized with paralysis, and, having no trained
nurse, the footman and I sat up with him for sixteen nights during his
recovery. On the seventeenth night, at about 11:30 p.m., I said to the
footman: 'The master seems so well, and sleeping soundly, I shall go
to bed; and if he awakes worse, or you require me, call me.' I then
retired to my room, which was over the one occupied by the invalid.
"I went to bed and was soon asleep, when some time afterwards I was
awakened by a slight push on the left shoulder. I was at the time
lying on my right side facing the door (which was on the right side of
my bed, and the fireplace on the left). I started up and said: 'Edward,
is there anything wrong?' I received no answer, but immediately
received another push. I got annoyed and said, 'Can you not speak, man,
and tell me if anything is wrong?' Still no answer; and I had a feeling
that I was going to get another push when I suddenly turned around
and caught (what I then thought) a human hand, warm, soft and plump.
I said: 'Who are you?' but I got no answer. I then tried to pull the
person towards me, to endeavor to find out who it was, but although I
am nearly thirteen stone, I could not move whoever it was, but felt
that I myself was likely to be drawn from the bed. I then said, 'I will
know who you are,' and having the hand tight in my hand, with my left I
felt the wrist and arm--enclosed, as it seemed to me, in a tight sleeve
of some winter material with a linen cuff; but when I got to the elbow
all trace of the arm ceased! I was so astonished that I let the hand
go, and just then the house clock struck 2 a.m. I then thought no one
could possibly get to the door without my catching them; but lo! the
door was fast shut as when I came to bed, and another thought struck
me--the fact that, when I pulled the hand, I heard no one breathing,
though I myself was 'puffed' from the strength I used!
"Including the mistress of the house, there were in all five females,
and I am assured that the hand belonged to no one of them. When I
related the adventure, the servants exclaimed, 'Oh, it must be the
master's old aunt Betty,'--an old lady who had lived for many years
in the upper part of the house, occupying two rooms, and had died
over fifty years ago, at a great age. I afterwards learned that the
_room_ in which I felt the hand had been considered 'haunted,' and many
curious noises and peculiar incidents had occurred there, such as the
bed-clothes being torn off. One lady got a slap in the face from some
invisible hand, and, when she lighted her candle, she saw something
opaque fall, or jump off the bed. A general officer, a brother of the
lady, slept there two nights, but preferred going to an hotel rather
than remaining a third! He never would say what he heard or saw, but
always asserted the room was 'uncanny.' I slept for months in that room
afterwards and was never in the least disturbed. I never knew what
nervousness was in my life, and only regret that my astonishment caused
me to let go the hand before finding out the purpose of the visit.
Whether it was meant for a warning or not, I may add that the old
gentleman lived three years and six months afterwards...."
"I AM SHOT!"
The next case is well authenticated, and appeared in the _Proceedings_
of the Society for Psychical Research (S. P. R.):
After some preliminary remarks, the writer proceeds:
"I awoke and saw standing by my bed, between me and the chest of
drawers, a figure, which, in spite of the unwonted dress--unwonted, at
least, to me--and of a full, black beard, I at once recognized as that
of my old brother officer. He had on the usual khaki coat, worn by the
officers on service in eastern climates.... His face was pale, but his
bright black eyes shone as keenly as when, a year and a half before,
they had looked upon me as he stood with one foot on the hansom,
bidding me _adieu_.
"Fully impressed for the moment that we were stationed together in
Ireland or somewhere, and thinking I was in my barrack-room, I said,
'Hello, P., am I late for parade?' P. looked at me steadily, and
replied, 'I'm shot!'
"'Shot!' I exclaimed, 'Good God, how and where?'
"'Through the lungs,' replied P.; and as he spoke his right hand moved
slowly up to his breast, until the fingers rested over the right lung.
"'What were you doing?' I asked.
"'The General sent me forward,' he answered; and the right hand left
the breast to move slowly to the front, pointing over my head to the
window, and at the same moment the figure melted away. I rubbed my
eyes, to make sure I was not dreaming, and sprang out of bed. It was
then 4.10 a.m. by the clock on my mantelpiece.
"Two days later news was received that he had been killed at Lang's
Neck between 11 and 12 o'clock on the night in question."
* * * * *
The following is a nautical story:
HEAVE THE LEAD!
In the year 1664, Captain Thomas Rogers, commander of a ship called the
_Society_, was bound on a voyage from London to Virginia. The vessel
being sent light to Virginia, for a loading of tobacco, carried little
freight in her outward hold.
"One day when they made an observation, the mates and officers brought
their books and cast up their reckonings with the captain, to see how
near they were to the coast of America. They all agreed that they were
a _hundred leagues_ from the capes of Virginia. Upon these customary
reckonings, and heaving the lead, and finding no ground at a hundred
fathoms, they set the watch, and the captain turned in.
"The weather was fine; a moderate gale of wind blew from the coast; so
that the ship might have run about twelve or thirteen leagues in the
night, after the captain was in his cabin.
"He fell asleep, and slept very soundly for about three hours, when he
woke again, and lay still till he heard his second mate turn out and
relieve the watch. He then called his first mate, as he was going off
watch, and asked him how all things fared? The mate answered that all
was well, though the gale had freshened, and they were running at a
great rate; but it was a fair wind, and a fair, clear night.
"The captain then went to sleep again.
"About an hour after, he dreamed that some one had pulled him, and bade
him turn out and look abroad. He, however, lay still and went to sleep
again; but was suddenly re-awakened. This occurred several times; and,
though he knew not what was the reason, yet he found it impossible to
go to sleep any more. Still he heard the vision say: 'Turn out and look
abroad.'
"The captain lay in this state of uneasiness nearly two hours, until
finally he felt compelled to don his great coat and go on deck. All was
well; it was a fine, clear night.
"The men saluted him; and the captain called out: 'How's she heading?'
"'Southwest by south, sir,' answered the mate; 'fair for the coast, and
the wind east by north.'
"'Very good,' said the captain, and as he was about to return to his
cabin, _something_ stood by him, and said: 'Heave the lead.'
"Upon hearing this the captain said to the second mate: 'When did you
heave the lead? What water had you?'
"'About an hour ago, sir,' replied the mate; 'sixty fathom.'
"'Heave again,' the captain commanded.
"When the lead was cast they had ground at eleven fathoms. This
surprised them all; but much more when, at the next cast, it came up
_seven_ fathoms.
"Upon this, the captain, in a fright, bid them put the helm alee, and
about ship, all hands ordered to back the sails, as is usual in such
cases.
"The proper orders being observed, the ship 'stayed' and came about;
but before the sails filled, she had but four-fathoms-and-a-half water
under her stern. As soon as she filled and stood off, they had seven
fathoms again, and at the next cast eleven fathoms, and so on to twenty
fathoms. They then stood off to seaward all the rest of the watch, to
get into deep water, till daybreak, when, being a clear morning, the
capes of Virginia were in fair view under their stern, and but a few
leagues distant. Had they stood-on but one cable-length further, as
they were going, they would have been ashore, and certainly lost their
ship, if not their lives--all through the erroneous reckonings of the
previous day. _Who_ or _what_ was it that waked the captain and bade
him save the ship? That he has never been able to tell!"
* * * * *
The incident which follows is somewhat similar--though more
dramatic--being also a nautical story:
THE RESCUE AT SEA
The following famous narrative is taken from Mr. Robert Dale Owen's
collection, printed in his _Footfalls on the Boundary of Another
World_, and _The Debatable Land Between this World and the Next_. It is
quite a famous case, and is vouched for by Mr. Owen. It is as follows:
"Mr. Robert Bruce, descended from some branch of the Scottish family of
the same name, was born in humble circumstances about the close of the
eighteenth century at Torbay, in the south of England, and there bred
up to a seafaring life. When about thirty years of age (in the year
1828), he was first mate on board a barque trading between Liverpool
and St. John's, New Brunswick.
"On one of her voyages, bound westward, being then some five or six
weeks out, and having neared the eastern portion of the Banks of
Newfoundland, the captain and the mate had been on deck at noon, taking
an observation of the sun; after which they both descended to calculate
their day's work.
"The cabin, a small one, was immediately at the stern of the vessel,
and the short stairway, descending to it, ran athwart-ships.
Immediately opposite to this stairway, just beyond a small, square
landing, was the mate's state room; and from that landing there were
two doors, close to each other--the one opening aft into the cabin,
the other fronting the stairway into the stateroom. The desk in the
stateroom was in the forward part of it, close to the door; so that
anyone sitting at it, and looking over his shoulder, could see into the
cabin.
"The mate, absorbed in his calculation, which did not result as he
expected, varying considerably from the 'dead reckoning,' had not
noticed the captain's motions. When he had completed his calculations,
he cried out, without looking round, 'I make our latitude and longitude
so-and-so. Can that be right? How is yours, sir?'
"Receiving no reply he repeated the question, glancing over his
shoulder and perceiving, as he thought, the captain busy at his slate.
Still no answer! Thereupon he rose, and, as he fronted the cabin
door, the figure he had mistaken for the captain raised his head and
disclosed to the astonished mate the features of an entire stranger.
"Bruce was no coward, but as he met that fixed gaze, looking directly
at him in grave silence, and became assured that it was no one whom he
had ever seen before, it was too much for him; and, instead of stopping
to question the seeming intruder, he rushed upon deck in such evident
alarm that it instantly attracted the captain's attention.
"'Why, Mr. Bruce,' said the latter, 'what in the world is the matter
with you?'
"'The matter, sir? Who is that at your desk?'
"'No one that I know of.'
"'But there _is_, sir, there's a stranger there.'
"'A stranger? Why, man, you must be dreaming! You must have seen the
steward there, or the second mate. Who else would venture down without
orders?'
"'But, sir, he was sitting in your arm chair, fronting the door,
writing on your slate. Then he looked up full in my face; and if ever I
saw a man plainly and distinctly in the world I saw him.'
"'Him! Who?'
"'Heaven knows, sir; I don't! I saw a man and a man I have never seen
in my life before.'
"'You must be going crazy, Mr. Bruce. A stranger, and we nearly six
weeks out!'
"The captain descended the stairs, and the mate followed him. Nobody in
the cabin! They examined the staterooms. Not a soul could be found.
"'Well, Mr. Bruce,' said the Captain, 'did not I tell you that you had
been dreaming?'
"'It's all very well to say so, sir; but if I didn't see that man
writing on the slate may I never see home and family again!'
"'Ah! Writing on the slate. Then it should be there still!' And the
captain took it up. 'By heaven,' he exclaimed, 'here's something sure
enough! Is that your writing, Mr. Bruce?'
"The mate took the slate; and there, in plain, legible characters,
stood the words: 'Steer to the Nor'-west.'
"The captain sat down at his desk, the slate before him, in deep
thought. At last turning the slate over, and pushing it toward Bruce,
he said: 'Write down: "Steer to the nor'west."'
"The mate complied; and the captain, comparing the two handwritings,
said: 'Mr. Bruce, go and tell the second mate to come down here.'
"He came, and at the captain's request, he also wrote the words. So did
the steward. So in succession did every man of the crew who could write
at all. But not one of the various hands resembled, in any degree, the
mysterious writing.
"When the crew retired, the captain sat deep in thought. 'Could anyone
have been stowed away?' at last he said. 'The ship must be searched.
Order up all hands.'
"Every nook and corner of the vessel was thoroughly searched; not a
living soul was found.
"Accordingly, the captain decided to change the vessel's course
according to the instructions received. A look-out was posted; who
shortly reported an iceberg, and then, shortly after, a vessel close to
it.
"As they approached, the captain's glass disclosed the fact that it was
a dismantled ship, apparently frozen to the ice.... It proved to be a
vessel from Quebec, bound for Liverpool, with passengers on board. She
had got entangled in the ice, and finally frozen fast; and had passed
several weeks in a most critical situation. She was stove, her decks
swept; in fact, a mere wreck; all her provisions and almost all her
water gone. Her crew and passengers had lost all hope of being saved,
and their gratitude at the unexpected rescue was proportionately great.
"As one of the men who had been brought away in the third boat ascended
the ship's side, the mate, catching a glimpse of his face, started back
in consternation. It was the very face he had seen three or four hours
before, looking up at him from the captain's desk! He communicated this
fact to the captain.
"After the comfort of the passengers had been seen to, the captain
turned to the stranger, and said to him: 'I hope, sir, you will not
think I am trifling with you, but I would be much obliged to you if you
would write a few words on this slate.' And he handed him the slate,
with that side up on which the mysterious writing was not.
"'I will do anything you ask,' replied the passenger, 'but what shall I
write?'
"'A few words are all I want. Suppose you write: 'Steer to the
nor'-west.'
"The passenger, evidently puzzled to make out the motive of such a
request, complied, however, with a smile. The captain took up the slate
and examined it closely; then stepping aside so as to conceal the slate
from the passenger, he turned it over and gave it to him the other side
up.
"'You say that this is your handwriting?' said he.
"'I need not say so,' replied the other, looking at it, 'for you saw me
write it.'
"'And this?' said the captain, turning the slate over.
"The man looked first at one writing, then at the other, quite
confounded. At last: 'What is the meaning of this?' said he. 'I only
wrote _one_ of these. Who wrote the _other_?'
"'That's more than I can tell you, sir. My mate here says you wrote it,
sitting at this desk, at noon to-day!'
"The captain of the wreck and the passenger looked at each other,
exchanging glances of intelligence and surprise; then the former asked
the latter: 'Did you dream that you wrote on this slate?'
"'No, sir, not that I remember.'
"'You speak of dreaming,' said the captain of the barque. 'What was
this gentleman about at noon to-day?'
"'Captain,' rejoined the other, (the captain of the wreck), 'the
whole thing is most mysterious and extraordinary; and I had intended
to speak to you about it as soon as we got a little quiet. This
gentleman--pointing to the passenger--being much exhausted, fell into
a heavy sleep, or what seemed such, some time before noon. After an
hour or more, he awoke, and said to me: 'Captain, we shall be relieved
this very day.' When I asked him what reason he had for saying so, he
replied that he had dreamed that he was on board a barque, and that
she was coming to our rescue. He described her appearance and rig,
and, to our utter astonishment, when your vessel hove in sight, she
corresponded exactly to his description of her! We had not put much
faith in what he said; yet still we hoped there might be something in
it, for drowning men, as you know, catch at straws. As it turned out, I
cannot doubt that it was all arranged by some overruling Providence.'
"'There is not a doubt,' replied the captain of the barque, 'that the
writing on the slate, let it come there as it may, saved all your
lives. I was steering at the time considerably south of west, and I
altered my course for the nor'-west, and had a look-out aloft, to
see what would come of it. But you say,' he added, turning to the
passenger, 'that you did not dream of writing on a slate?'
"'No, sir. I have no recollection whatever of doing so. I got the
impression that the barque I saw in my dream was coming to rescue us;
but _how_ that impression came I cannot tell. There is another very
strange thing about it,' he added. 'Everything here on board seems to
be quite familiar; yet I am very sure that I was never in your vessel
before. It is all a puzzle to me! What did your mate see?'
"Thereupon Mr. Bruce related to them all the circumstances above
detailed."
HOW GHOSTS INFLUENCE US
The following is a very interesting case, which brings vividly before
us the fact that ghosts often draw power from those who witness their
manifestations--just as they draw vitality from a materializing
"medium," during a seance. As cases of this character are rare, the
following is of considerable value:
"It was an afternoon, last autumn, about six o'clock. I had returned
from a stroll and was sitting in my own apartment on Central Park West,
reading _Vanity Fair_. While turning over its pages I became suddenly
aware of a novel and indescribable sensation. My chest and breathing
became inwardly oppressed by some ponderous weight, while I became
conscious of some 'presence' behind me, exerting a powerful influence
on the forces within. On trying to turn my head to see what it could
be, I was powerless to do so; neither could I lift a hand, or move in
any way. I was not a little alarmed, and began immediately to reason.
My mind was alive, though physically I was unable to move a muscle.
It was as if the current of nerve force within seemed forcibly drawn
together and focussed on a spot in front of me.
"I gazed motionless, as though with something intenser than ordinary
eyesight, on what was no longer vacant space. There an oval, misty
light was forming--elongatory, widening, yes, actually developing
into a human face and form. Was this hallucination, or some vision
of the unseen, coming in so unexpected a fashion? Before me had
arisen a remarkable figure, never seen before in a picture or
life--dark-skinned, aged, with white beard, the expression intensely
earnest, the features small, the bald head finely moulded, lofty over
the forehead, the whole demeanor instinct with solemn grace.
"He was speaking to me in deep tones, as if in urgent entreaty.
What would I not give to hear words from such a figure! But no
effort availed me to distinguish one articular sound. I tried to
speak, but could not. With desperate effort I shook out the words,
'Speak louder.' The face grew more intent, the voice louder and more
emphatic. Was there something amiss with my own hearing, then, that
I could distinguish no word amid these deeply emphasized tones?
Slowly and deliberately the figure vanished--through the same stages
of indistinctness, back to the globular lamplike whiteness, till it
faded to nothingness. Before it had quite faded away, the face only
of a woman arose, indistinct and dim. The same emphatic hum, though
in a subdued note; the same paralysis of voice and muscle, the same
strange force, as it was overshadowing me. With the disappearance of
this second and far less interesting figure, I recovered my power of
movement and arose.
"My first impulse was to look around for the origin of this strange
force; my second to rush to the looking-glass to make sure of myself.
There could be no illusion. There I was, paler than usual, the forehead
bathed in perspiration. I threw open the window. It was no dream. There
were the passing trolley cars below, clanging up and down, while a
crowd of noisy youngsters were playing in the park across the way. I
sponged my face, and, greatly agitated, walked hurriedly to and fro.
If this is real, I thought, it may recur. I would sit in the same
position, try to be calm, read a book, remain as still and passive as I
could, and see the result.
"To my intense interest, and almost at once, the strange sense of some
power operating on the nerve-forces within, followed by the same loss
of muscular power, the same wide-awakeness of the reason, the same
drawing out and concentrating of the energies on that spot in front,
repeated itself--this time more deliberately, leaving me freer to take
mental notes of what was happening. Again arose the noble, earnest
figure, gazing at me, the hands moving in solemn accompaniment to the
deep tones of voice. The same effort, painful on my part, to hear, with
no result. The vision passed. Again the woman's face, insignificant and
meaningless, succeeded it as before. She spoke, but in less emphatic
tones. It flashed upon me that I _would_ hear. After a frantic effort,
I caught two words--'Land,' 'America'--with positively no clue to their
meaning.
"I was wide awake when the first apparition appeared, and in a highly
excited state of mind on its re-appearance."
HOW A GHOST WARNED THE KING
Kings and queens are not exempt from visitations of the supernatural;
indeed, a large number of royal dignitaries have seen "ghosts," and
have been haunted by specters in as unpleasant a manner as any ordinary
mortal. Were we to hunt through the pages of history, we should find
many of these--some of which it will doubtless be of interest to give
at some future time. The following account is taken from the _Annals
of the Kingdom of Scotland_, and is told in queer old English, with
long 's's,' and so on, making it very hard to read in the original! I
interpret it into modern English as best I can, maintaining its form:
"While James IV. stayed at Linlithgow, to gather up the scattered
remains of his army, which had been defeated by the Earl of Surrey, at
Flodden-field, he went into the Church of St. Michael there to hear
evening prayer. While he was at his devotion, a remarkable figure
of an ancient man, with flowing amber-colored hair hanging over his
shoulders, his forehead high, and inclining to baldness, his garments
of a fine blue color, somewhat long and girded together, with a fine
white cloth, of comely and very reverent aspect, was seen inquiring
for the king; when his majesty being pointed out to him he made his
way through the crowd till he came to him, and then, with a clown's
simplicity, leaning over the cannon's feet, he addressed him in the
following words: 'Sir, I am sent hither to entreat you to delay your
intended expedition for this time, and proceed no further; for if you
do, you will be unfortunate, and not prosper in your enterprise, nor
any of your followers. I am further charged to warn you, not to follow
the acquaintance, company or counsel of women, as you value your life,
honour and estate.'
"After giving him this admonition, he withdrew himself back through the
crowd and disappeared.
"When service was ended, the king enquired earnestly after him, but
he could not be found or heard of anywhere, neither could any of the
bystanders (of whom many narrowly watched him, resolving afterwards
to have discoursed with him) feel or perceive how, when or where he
passed from them, having in a manner vanished from their sight.
"This caused the king to feel some uneasiness; 'for,' said he, 'if he
were mortal man, how did he go so quickly hence, and how did he give me
such advice, which I, of all men, know at this time to be of value?'
The king was sorely puzzled; and called the warden of the church to
him, and questioned him as to the man whom he had seen.
"And when the warden had heard the tale from the king, he questioned
him in turn, as to the man's appearance--whether he was this and that;
and of the man's manner of speech. And when the king had answered to
his satisfaction, he turned pale; and said: 'Oh, king, the personage
whom you saw to-day was not mortal man; but one dead long ago; one
who lived and died close here; and known to many of us well. He has
been known to come before in times of great stress; and his advice has
always been good. Truly, my lord, you have this day seen an apparition
of a dead man.'
"And the king marvelled at what he had seen."
Thus ends the curious old narrative. It will be seen that several
others saw the ghost besides the king. These are called "collective
cases" by those engaged in psychical studies; for the reason that
several persons saw the figure at the same time, or "collectively."
Such cases have never been satisfactorily explained. For, if the
phantom were a mere hallucination, as many claim, how did several see
it at once?
THE STAINS OF BLOOD
The following narrative was personally related to Robert Dale Owen, by
a clergyman of the Church of England, who was Chaplain, at the time, to
the British Legation in Florence. It is as follows:
"In the year 1856, I was staying with my wife and children, at a
favorite watering place. In order to attend to some affairs of my
own, I determined to leave my family there for three or four days.
Accordingly, on the 8th of August, I took the railway, and arrived that
evening an unexpected guest at the Hall--the residence of a gentleman
whose acquaintance I had recently made, and with whom my sister was
then staying.
"I arrived late, soon afterwards went to bed, and before long fell
asleep. Awaking after three or four hours, I was not surprised to find
that I could sleep no more--for I never rest well in a strange bed.
After trying, therefore, in vain to induce sleep, I began to arrange
my plans for the day. I had been engaged some little time in this way,
when I became suddenly sensitive to the fact that there was a light in
the room. Turning round, I distinctly perceived a female figure; and
what attracted my special attention was that the light by which I saw
it emanated from itself. I watched the figure attentively. The features
were not perceptible. After moving a little distance, it disappeared as
suddenly as it had appeared.
"My first thoughts were that there was some trick. I immediately got
out of bed, struck a light, and found my bedroom door still locked. I
then carefully examined the walls, to ascertain if there was any other
concealed means of entrance or exit, but none could I find. I drew the
curtains and opened the shutters, but all outside was silent and dark,
there being no moonlight. After examining the room in every part, I
went back to bed, and began thinking calmly over the whole matter. What
had I seen? And why did _It appear_?
"In the morning, as soon as I was up and dressed, I told my sister what
I had seen. She then informed me that the house had the reputation of
being 'haunted'; and that a murder had been committed in it; but not
in the room in which I had slept. Later in the day I left--after making
my sister promise to do all she could to unravel the mystery.
"On the following Wednesday morning, I received a letter from my
sister, in which she informed me that, since I left, she had made
inquiries and had ascertained that the murder _was_ committed in the
very room in which I slept! She added that she proposed visiting us the
next day, and that she would like me to write out an account of what I
had seen--together with a plan of the room, and that on that plan she
wished me to mark the place of the appearance and disappearance of the
figure.
"This I immediately did; and the next day when my sister arrived, she
asked me if I had complied with her request? I replied, pointing to the
drawing room table: 'Yes, there is the account and the plan.'
"As she rose to examine it, I prevented her, saying: 'Do not look
at it until you have told me all you have to say, because you might
unintentionally color your story by what you may read there.'
"Thereupon she informed me that she had had the carpet taken up in the
room I had occupied, and that the marks of blood from the murdered
person were there, plainly visible, on a particular part of the floor.
At my request she also then drew a plan of the room, and marked upon it
the spots which still bore traces of blood. The two plans--my sister's
and mine--were now compared; and we verified the most remarkable fact
that _the place she had marked as the beginning and ending of the
traces of blood coincided exactly with the spots marked on my plan as
those on which the female figure had appeared and disappeared_!"
FACE TO FACE!
The following case is recorded by the wife of Colonel Lewin, and is
reported in the _Proceedings_ of the S. P. R.:
"In January, 1868, I took a house close to Hastings.... One night
there was a heavy storm, the weather was bitterly cold, and a fire was
burning in my bedroom when I went to bed at 10.30. I tried to go to
sleep, but it was no use; the noise of the wind and the rain kept me
awake. I must have been lying like this for a couple of hours when I
became conscious of what seemed like a light in the room.... I thought
the fire must have re-kindled itself, and crawled along on my knees
on the bed to look at the fire over the high wooden foot, to see how
this might be. I had no thought of anything but the fire, and was not
nervous in the slightest degree. As I raised myself on my knees and
looked over the foot of the bed, I found myself face to face, at a
distance of about three feet, with the semblance of a man. I never for
a moment thought he was a man, but was struck with the feeling that
this was one from the dead.
"The light seemed to emanate from round this figure, but the only
portions which I saw clearly were the head and shoulders. The face I
shall never forget; it was pale, emaciated, with a thin, high-bridged
nose, and eyes deeply sunk and glowing in the sockets with a sort of
glare. A long beard was seemingly rolled in under a white comforter,
and on the head was a slouched felt hat. I had a nervous shock, and
felt a dead person was looking upon _me_--a living one, but had no
sensation of being actually frightened, until the figure moved slowly
as if interposing between me and the door, then horror overcame me and
I fell back in a dead faint. How long I remained unconscious I know
not, but I came to myself cold and cramped; the room was quite dark and
nothing was visible. Thoroughly tired out, I got into bed, and slept
soundly until morning."
JULIA, DARLING!
The next example is from the _Proceedings_ of the S. P. R. (Vol. V.,
pp. 440-41), and Mr. Myers states that the writer was well known to
him. The account reads in part:
"My mother died on the 24th of June, 1874, at Slima, Malta, where we
were then residing for her health. Seven nights later she appeared
to me.... I seemed to have been sleeping some time when I woke, and,
turning over on the other side towards the window, saw my mother
standing by my bedside, crying and wringing her hands. I had not
been awake long enough to remember that she was dead, and exclaimed
quite naturally, 'Why, dear, what's the matter?' and then suddenly
remembering, I screamed. The nurse sprang up from the next room, but
on the top step flung herself on her knees and began to tell her beads
and cry. My father at the same moment arrived at the opposite door, and
I heard his sudden exclamation of 'Julia, darling.' My mother turned
towards him, and then to me, and, wringing her hands again, retreated
towards the nursery and was lost. The nurse afterwards stated that she
distinctly felt something pass her.... My father ordered her out of the
room, and telling me that I had only been dreaming, stayed until I
fell asleep. The next day, however, he told me that he, too, had seen
the vision, and that he hoped to do so again, and that if ever she came
to see me ... I was not to be frightened ... but she never appeared
again."
THE CUT ACROSS THE CHEEK
In the narrative which follows, the apparition conveyed--by its very
appearance--information which the percipient could not possibly have
known. It is from Mr. H. Walton, of Dent, Sedburgh, England, and was
sent to Mr. Stead, who published it:
"In the month of April, 1881, I was located in Norfolk, and my duties
took me once a fortnight to a fishing village on the coast--so I can
guarantee the following facts: It is customary for the fishing smacks
to go to Grimsby 'line fishing' in the spring. The vessels started one
afternoon on their journey north. In the evening, a heavy north-east
wind blew, and one of the boats mistook the white surf on the rocks
for the reflection of a lighthouse. In consequence the boat got into
shallow water, a heavy sea came, and swept two men from the deck. One
man grasped a rope and was saved; the other, a younger man, failed to
save himself, though an expert swimmer. It was said that he was heard
to shout about 11 o'clock.
"Towards one o'clock, the young man's mother, lying awake, saw his
apparition come to the foot of the bed, clad in white, and she screamed
with fright, and told her husband what she had seen, and that J. was
drowned. He sought in vain to calm her by saying that she must have
been dreaming. She asserted the contrary. Next day, when her daughter
came in with the telegram of the sad event, before her daughter had
time to speak, she cried out: 'J. is drowned,' and became unconscious;
she remained in this state for many hours. When she regained
consciousness, she told them particularly and distinctly what she had
seen; and what is to the point is this remarkable thing: she said: 'If
ever the body is found, it has a cut across the cheek,'--specifying
which cheek. The body was found some days after, and exactly as mother
had seen it, was the cut on the cheek."
THE INVISIBLE HAND
The following account was sent to the S. P. R. Ghosts are usually
_seen_; they are sometimes heard; they are very rarely _felt_. The
account which follows is an example of the latter class, in which the
ghost was not only seen but touched.
After stating that she was visiting a friend of hers in the country,
when the event occurred, the narrator proceeds:
"We went upstairs together, I being perhaps a couple of steps behind my
friend, when, on reaching the topmost step, I felt something suddenly
slip behind me from an unoccupied room on the left of the stairs.
Thinking it must be imagination, no one being in the house except the
widow and servant, who occupied rooms on another landing, I did not
speak to my friend, who turned off to a room on the right, but walked
quickly into my room, which faced the staircase, still feeling as
though a tall figure was bending over me. I turned on the gas, struck a
light, and was in the act of applying it, when I felt a heavy grasp on
my arm of a hand, minus the middle finger. Upon this I uttered a loud
cry, which brought my friend, the widow lady, and the servant girl,
into the room to inquire the cause of my alarm. The two latter turned
very pale on hearing the story. The house was thoroughly searched, but
nothing was discovered.
"Some weeks passed, and I had ceased to be alarmed at the occurrence,
when I chanced to mention it whilst spending the afternoon with some
friends. A gentleman asked me if I had ever heard a description or
seen a 'carte' of the lady's late husband. On receiving a reply in the
negative, he said, singularly enough, he was tall, had a slight stoop,
and has lost the middle finger on his hand! On my return, I inquired of
the servant, who had been in the family from childhood, if such were
the case, and learned that it was quite correct, and that she (the
girl) had once, when sleeping in the same room, awakened on feeling
some one pressing down her knees, and on opening her eyes saw her late
master by the bed side--on which she fainted, and had never dared to
enter the room after dark since. She is not an imaginative girl; nor am
I. When I was grasped, however, _I_ did not _see_ anything.
"But worse was to follow! It so chanced that I had to sleep in that
room once again, as the house was full of company, and there was
nowhere else for me to go. I had by this time got over my fears, and
hardly minded the idea of sleeping in the room at all. I left the room
door open, turned out the light and was soon sound asleep.
"Some time in the early hours of the morning I awoke with an
indescribable feeling. I was _suddenly_ wide awake--without the
slightest traces of sleep; yet I did not know _how_ I awoke; and had
not any recollection of waking. But there I was wide awake, and staring
up at the ceiling with wide-open eyes. My right hand was hanging over
the side of the bed; so that it fell outwards, into the room. Imagine
my horror, then, in feeling a hand suddenly grasp my hand, and I felt
distinctly that it was _minus the middle finger_. The hand was icy
cold, and of a peculiar hardness. I hung on to the hand, however,
determined to go to the bottom of the affair. I gripped tightly; and
still retained the hand in my grip. Bending over, I stretched out my
left hand, and, with the fingers of that hand, felt over the hand and
wrist I was holding. I then commenced to trace it up the arm. I had
about reached the elbow--or a little below--when the arm suddenly
ended--came to nothing; was no more! Yet the hand in mine was as
solid as ever. This gave me such a shock that I let go the hand I was
holding, and sank back onto my pillows. Then terror took possession of
me; and I do not know what happened later. I only know that I had brain
fever, which laid me low for several weeks. The occurrence has never
been explained."
THE APPARITION OF THE RADIANT BOY
The following is a famous case, well-known as the "Apparition of the
Radiant Boy." It was seen by the Marquis of Londonderry, and frequently
spoken of by him afterwards.
At the time of the appearance, Lord Londonderry was on a visit to a
friend in the North of Ireland. The apartment assigned to him was one
calculated to foster the belief in ghosts, because of its richly carved
paneling--its huge fireplace, looking like the open entrance into a
tomb--and the vast, ponderous draperies that hung in thick folds around
the room.
Lord Londonderry examined his chamber; he made himself acquainted with
the forms and faces of the ancient possessors of the mansion, whose
portraits hung around the room. Then, after dismissing his valet, he
retired to bed.
His candles had not long been extinguished when he perceived a light
gleaming on the draperies of the lofty canopies over his head.
Conscious that there was no fire in the grate--that the curtains were
closed--that the chamber had been in perfect darkness but a few minutes
before, he supposed that some intruder must have accidentally entered
his apartment; and, turning hastily around to the side from which the
light proceeded, saw, to his infinite astonishment, not the form of a
human visitor, but the figure of a fair boy, who seemed to be garmented
in rays of mild and tempered glory, which beamed palely from his
slender form, like the faint light of the declining moon and rendered
the objects nearest to him dimly and indistinctly visible. The spirit
stood but a short distance from the side of the bed.
Certain that his own faculties were not deceiving him, Lord Londonderry
got up and moved towards the figure. It retreated before him; as he
slowly advanced, and with equal pace, slowly retired. It entered the
gloomy arch of the capacious chimney, and then sank into the earth.
Lord Londonderry returned to his bed, but not to rest; his mind was
harassed by the consideration of the extraordinary event which had
occurred to him. Was it real? Was it the work of imagination? Was it
the result of imposture? It was all incomprehensible.
He resolved in the morning not to mention the appearance till he should
have well observed the manners and countenances of the family; he was
conscious that, if any deception had been practised, its authors would
be too delighted with their success to conceal the vanity of their
triumph.
When the guests assembled at the breakfast table, the eye of Lord
Londonderry searched in vain for latent smiles--those conscious
looks--that silent communication between the parties, by which
the authors of such domestic conspiracies are generally betrayed.
Everything, apparently, proceeded in its ordinary course. At last the
hero of the tale felt bound to mention the occurrence of the night.
At its conclusion, his host said: "The circumstances which you have
just recounted appear very extraordinary to those who have not long
been inmates of my dwelling; and are not conversant with the legends
of my family; and to those who are, the event which has happened will
only serve as the corroboration of an old tradition that has long been
related of the apartment in which you slept. You have seen the 'Radiant
Boy'; be content--it is an omen of prosperous fortunes. I would rather
that this subject should not be mentioned." And here the affair ended.
FISHER'S GHOST
The following incident comes from Australia, and is well-known in that
part of the world. It is usually known as "Fisher's Ghost," and is to
the following effect:
"A number of years ago, a free settler, named John Fisher, who had
long successfully cultivated a grant of land in a remote district, and
who was known to be possessed of a considerable sum of money, had been
missing for some time after having visited the nearest market town,
whither he had been in the habit of repairing with cattle and produce
for sale.
"An inquiry was instituted by his acquaintances; but his head servant,
or rather his assistant on the farm--an ex-convict, who had lived many
years with him in that situation--declared that his master had left the
colony for some time on business, and that he expected him to return in
a few months. As this man was generally known as Fisher's confidential
servant, his assertion was believed--though some expressed surprise
at the settler's abrupt and clandestine departure; for his character
was good in every way. The 'month's wonder' soon subsided, however,
and Fisher was forgotten. His assistant, meanwhile, managed the farm,
bought and sold, and spent money freely. If questioned, which was
but rarely, he would express his surprise at his master's delay, and
pretend to expect him daily.
"A few months after he had been first missed, a neighbouring settler,
who was returning late on Saturday night from the market town, had
occasion to pass within half a mile of Fisher's house. As he was riding
by the fence which separated the farm from the high road, he distinctly
saw the figure of a man seated on the railing, and at once recognized
the form and features of his lost neighbor.
"He instantly stopped and called to him by name; but the figure
descended from the railing, and pointing appealingly toward the house,
walked slowly across the field in that direction. The settler, having
lost sight of him in the gloom, proceeded on his journey, and informed
his family and neighbors that he had seen Fisher and spoken to him.
On inquiry, however, Fisher's assistant said that he had not arrived,
and affected to laugh at the settler's story--insinuating that he had
probably drunk too freely at the market.
"The neighbors were, however, not satisfied. The strange appearance of
Fisher, sitting on the rail and pointing, with so much meaning, toward
his own house aroused their suspicions, and they insisted upon a strict
and immediate investigation by the police.
"The party of investigators took with them an old and clever native.
They had not proceeded far in the underbrush when they discovered a
log, on which was a dark brown stain. This the native examined, and
at once declared it to be '_white man's blood_.' He then, without
hesitation, set off at a full run, toward a pond not far from the house.
"He ran backwards and forwards about the pond, like a dog on the scent;
and finally, borrowing a ram-rod from one of the settlers, ran it into
the earth. He did this in one or two places; and finally said: '_White
man here._'
"The spot was immediately dug up, and a corpse, identified as that of
Fisher, was discovered, its skull fractured, and evidently many weeks
buried.
"The guilty assistant was immediately arrested, and tried at Sydney, on
circumstantial evidence alone--strong enough, however, to convict him,
in spite of his self-possession, and protestations of innocence. He
was sentenced to death; and, previous to his execution, made an ample
confession of his guilt."
HARRIET HOSMER'S VISION
Lydia Maria Child relates the following interesting narrative:
"When Harriet Hosmer, the sculptor, visited her native country a few
years ago, I had an interview with her, during which our conversation
happened to turn on dreams and visions.
"'I have had some experience in that way,' said she. 'Let me tell
you a singular circumstance that happened to me in Rome. An Italian
girl named Rosa was in my employ for a long time, but was finally
obliged to return to her mother on account of confirmed ill-health. We
were mutually sorry to part, for we liked each other. When I took my
customary exercise on horseback, I frequently called to see her. On one
of these occasions, I found her brighter than I had seen her for some
time past. I had long relinquished hopes of her recovery, but there was
nothing in her appearance that gave the appearance of immediate danger.
I left her with the expectation of calling to see her again many times.
During the remainder of the day, I was busy in my studio, and I do not
recollect that Rosa was in my thoughts after I had parted from her. I
retired to rest in good health, and in a quiet frame of mind. But I
woke from a sound sleep with the oppressive feeling that someone was in
the room. I wondered at the sensation, for it was entirely new to me;
but in vain I tried to dispel it. I peered beyond the curtains of my
bed but could distinguish no objects in the darkness. Trying to gather
my thoughts I reflected that the door was locked, and that I had put
the key under my bolster. I felt for it and found it where I had placed
it. I said to myself that I had probably had some ugly dream, and had
waked with a vague impression of it still on my mind. Reasoning thus, I
arranged myself comfortably for another nap.
"'I am habitually a good sleeper and a stranger to fear, but do what I
would, the idea still haunted me that someone was in the room. Finding
it impossible to sleep, I longed for daylight to dawn, that I might
rise and pursue my customary avocation. It was not long before I was
able dimly to distinguish the furniture in my room, and, soon after,
to hear familiar noises of servants opening windows and doors. An old
clock with ringing vibration, proclaimed the hour. I counted one,
two, three, four, five, and resolved to rise immediately. My bed was
partially screened by a long curtain looped up at one side. As I raised
my head from the pillow, Rosa looked inside the curtain, and smiled at
me. The idea of anything supernatural did not occur to me. I was simply
surprised and exclaimed: "Why, Rosa! How came you here when you are so
ill?"
"'In the old familiar tone to which I was so much accustomed, a voice
replied, "I am well now."
"'With no other thought but that of greeting her joyfully, I sprang out
of bed. There was no Rosa there! When I became convinced that there was
no one in the room but myself, I recollected the fact that my door was
locked, and thought I must have seen a vision.
"'At the breakfast table, I said to the old lady with whom I boarded:
"Rosa is dead." I then summoned a messenger and sent him to inquire how
Rosa was. He returned with the answer that she died that morning at 5
o'clock.'
"I wrote the story as Miss Hosmer told it to me, and after I had shown
it to her, I asked her if she had any objection to its being published
without suppression of names. She replied: 'You have reported the story
of Rosa correctly. Make what use you please of it. You cannot think it
more interesting or unaccountable than I do myself.'"
THE APPARITION OF THE MURDERED BOY
At the commencement of the French Revolution, Lady Pennyman and her
two daughters and her friend, Mrs. Atkins, retired to Lisle, where
they had hired a large and handsome house. A few weeks after taking
possession, the housekeeper, with many apologies for being obliged to
mention anything that might appear so idle and absurd, came to the
apartment in which her mistress was sitting, and said that two of
the servants who had accompanied her ladyship from England had that
morning given warning, and expressed a determination of quitting her
ladyship's service, on account of the mysterious noises by which they
had been night after night disturbed and terrified. The room from which
the sounds were supposed to have proceeded was at a distance from Lady
Pennyman's apartments, and immediately over those that were occupied by
the servants. To quiet the alarm Lady Pennyman resolved on leaving her
own chamber for a time and establishing herself in the one which had
been lately occupied by the domestics.
The room above was a long, spacious one, which appeared to have been
for a long time deserted. In the center of the chamber was a large iron
cage. It was said that the late proprietor of the house--a young man of
enormous wealth--had in his minority been confined in this cage by his
uncle and guardian and starved to death.
On the first night or two of Lady Pennyman's being established in her
new apartment, she met with no interruption. This quiet, however, was
of very short duration. One night she was awakened from her sleep by a
slow and heavy step pacing the chamber overhead. It continued to move
backwards and forwards for nearly an hour. There were more complaints
from the housekeeper, no servants would remain. Lady Pennyman began
herself to be alarmed. She requested the advice of Mrs. Atkins--a woman
devoid of every kind of superstitious fear, and of tried courage. Mrs.
Atkins determined to make the Cage room itself her sleeping quarters.
A bed was accordingly placed in the apartment, and Mrs. Atkins retired
to rest attended by her favorite spaniel--saying, as she bade them all
good-night, "I and my dog are able to compete with a myriad of ghosts."
Mrs. Atkins examined the chamber in every imaginable direction; she
sounded every panel of the wainscot to prove there was no hollowness
that might argue a concealed passage; and having securely bolted the
door of the room, retired to rest, confident that she was secure
against every material visitor, and totally incredulous of the airy
encroachments of spiritual beings. She had only been asleep a few
minutes, when her dog, which lay by her bedside, leaped, howling and
terrified, on the bed. The bolted door of the chamber slowly opened and
a pale, thin, sickly youth came in, cast his eyes mildly toward her,
walked up to the iron cage in the middle of the room, and then leaned
in the melancholy attitude of one revolving in his mind the sorrows of
a cheerless and unblest existence. After a while he again withdrew, and
retired by the way he entered.
Mrs. Atkins, on witnessing his departure, felt the return of her
resolution. She persuaded herself to believe the figure the work of
some skillful imposter, and she determined on following its footsteps.
She took up her lamp and hastened to the door. To her infinite
surprise, she discovered it to be fastened, as she had herself left it
on retiring to bed. On withdrawing the bolt, and opening the door, she
saw the back of the youth descending the staircase. She followed till,
on reaching the foot of the stairs, the form seemed to sink into the
earth.
The event was related to Lady Pennyman. She determined to remain no
longer in her present habitation. Another residence was offered in the
vicinity of Lisle, and this she took under the pretext that it was
better suited to the size of her family.
THE GHOST IN YELLOW CALICO
The Rev. Elwyn Thomas, 35, Park Village East, N. W., London, has
published a very remarkable experience of his own. It is as follows:
"Twelve years ago," says the doctor, "I was the second minister of
the Bryn Mawr Welsh Wesleyan Circuit, in the South Wales District. It
was a beautiful evening in June when, after conducting the service
at Llanyndir, I told the gentlemen with whom I generally stayed when
preaching there, that three young friends had come to meet me from
Crickhowell, and that I meant to accompany them back for about half a
mile on their return journey, so would not be home before nine o'clock.
"When I wished good-night to my friends it was about twenty minutes
to nine but still light enough to see a good distance. The subject
of our conversation all the way from the chapel until we parted
was of a certain eccentric old character who then belonged to the
Crickhowell church. I walked a little further down the road than I
intended in order to hear the end of a very amusing story about him.
Our conversation had no reference whatever to ghosts. Personally I was
a strong disbeliever in ghosts and invariably ridiculed anyone whom I
thought superstitious enough to believe in them.
"When I had walked about a hundred yards away from my friends, after
parting from them, I saw on the bank of the canal, what I thought at
the moment was an old beggar. I couldn't help asking myself where this
old man had come from. I had not seen him in going down the road. I
turned round quite unconcernedly to have another look at him, and had
no sooner done so than I saw, within half a yard of me one of the
most remarkable and startling sights I hope it will ever be my lot to
see. Almost on a level with my own face, I saw that of an old man,
over every feature of which the putty colored skin was drawn tightly,
except the forehead which was lined with deep wrinkles. The lips were
extremely thin and appeared perfectly bloodless. The toothless mouth
stood half open. The cheeks were hollow and sunken like those of a
corpse, and the eyes which seemed far back in the middle of the head,
were unnaturally luminous and piercing. The terrible object was wrapped
in two bands of old yellow calico, one of which was drawn under the
chin, and over the cheeks and tied at the top of the head, the other
was drawn round the top of the wrinkled forehead and fastened at the
back of the head. So deep and indelible an impression it made on my
mind, that, were I an artist, I could paint that face to-day.
"What I have thus tried to describe in many words, I saw at a glance.
Acting on the impulse of the moment, I turned my face toward the
village and ran away from the horrible vision with all my might for
about sixty yards. I then stopped and turned around to see how far I
had distanced it, and to my unspeakable horror, there it was still face
to face with me as if I had not moved an inch. I grasped my umbrella
and raised it to strike him, and you can imagine my feelings when I
could see nothing between the face and the ground, except an irregular
column of intense darkness, through which my umbrella passed as a stick
goes through water!
"I am sorry to say that I took to my heels with increasing speed. A
little further than the space of this second encounter, the road which
led to my host's house branched off the main road. Having gone two or
three yards down this branch road, I turned around again. He had not
followed me after I left the main road, but I could see the horribly
fascinating face quite as plainly as when it was close by. It stood
for a few minutes looking intently at me from the center of the main
road. I then realized fully that it was not a human being in flesh and
blood; and, with every vestige of fear gone, I quickly walked toward
it to put my questions. But I was disappointed, for, no sooner had I
made toward it, than it began to move slowly down the road keeping the
same distance above it until it reached the churchyard wall; it then
crossed the road and disappeared near where the yew tree stood inside.
The moment it disappeared, I became unconscious. Two hours later I came
to myself and I made my way slowly to my home. I could not say a word
to explain what had happened, though I tried several times. It was five
o'clock in the morning when I regained my power of speech. The whole of
the following week I was laid up with a nervous prostration.
"My host, after questioning me closely, told me that fifteen years
before that time an old recluse of eccentric character, answering
in every detail to my description (yellow calicoes, bands, and all)
lived in a house whose ruins still stand close by where I saw the face
disappear."
CHAPTER III
MORE PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD--II.
The cases included in this chapter are also very well
authenticated--some of them being longer and more detailed than those
included in the last chapter. I shall begin with a group of so-called
"Pact" Cases--cases, that is, in which a Pact or Agreement was made
before death--to appear after death, if possible; when that promise
seems to have been kept. The first case of this character is short, and
merely illustrative of the kind of ghostly phenomena to be expected
in cases of this nature. The latter cases are better attested. I give
first the case of the Marquis of Rambouillet.
COMPACTS TO APPEAR AFTER DEATH
The story of the Marquis of Rambouillet's appearing after his death
to his cousin, the Marquis de Precy, is well authenticated. These two
noblemen, talking one day concerning the affairs of the next world, in
a manner which showed they did not believe much about it, entered into
an agreement that the first who died should come and give intelligence
to the other.
Soon afterwards the Marquis of Rambouillet set out for Flanders, which
was then the seat of war, and the Marquis de Precy remained in Paris,
being ill of a violent fever. About six weeks after, early one morning,
he heard someone draw the curtains of his bed, and turning to see who
it was, discovered the Marquis of Rambouillet in a buff coat and boots.
He instantly got out of bed, and attempted to shake hands with his
friend, but Rambouillet drew back, and told him he had only come to
perform the promise he had formerly made; that nothing was more certain
than another life; and that he earnestly advised him to alter his mode
of life, for in the first battle he would be engaged in, he would
certainly fall.
Precy made a fresh attempt to touch his friend, but he immediately
withdrew. Precy lay upon his bed wondering upon the strangeness of the
circumstances for some time, when he saw the same appearance re-enter
the apartment. Rambouillet, finding that Precy still disbelieved what
he was told, showed him the wound of which he had died, and from which
the blood still seemed to flow.
Soon after this, Precy received a confirmation of Rambouillet's death,
and was killed himself, according to the prediction, in the civil wars,
at the battle of Faubourg St. Antoine.
LORD BROUGHAM'S VISION
The promise to appear was given and kept in the case of the apparition
seen by Lord Brougham.
The story is given as follows in the first volume of "Lord Brougham's
Memoirs":
"A most remarkable thing happened to me, so remarkable that I must
tell the story from the beginning. After I left the High School I went
with G----, my most intimate friend, to attend the classes in the
University. There was no divinity class, but we frequently in our walks
discussed many grave subjects--among others the immortality of the soul
and a future state. This question, and the possibility of the dead
appearing to the living, were the subject of much speculation, and we
actually committed the folly of drawing up an agreement, written with
our blood, to the effect that whichever of us died the first should
appear to the other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of
the 'life after death.' After we had finished our classes at the
College, G---- went to India, having got an appointment there in the
Civil Service. He seldom wrote to me, and after a lapse of a few years
I had nearly forgotten his existence.... One day I had taken, as I have
said, a warm bath, and, while lying in it and enjoying the comfort of
the heat, I turned my head round, looking towards the chair on which
I had deposited my clothes, as I was about to get out of the bath. On
the chair sat G----, looking calmly at me! How I got out of the bath
I know not; but on recovering my senses, I found myself sprawling
on the floor. The apparition, or whatever it was that had taken the
likeness of G----, had disappeared. This vision had produced such a
shock that I had no inclination to talk about it, or to speak about it
even to Stewart, but the impression it made upon me was too vivid to
be easily forgotten, and so strongly was I affected by it that I have
here written down the whole history, with the date, December 19th, and
all the particulars, as they are now fresh before me. No doubt I had
fallen asleep, and that the apparition presented so distinctly before
my eyes was a dream I cannot for a moment doubt; yet for years I had
had no communication with G----, nor had there been anything to recall
him to my recollection. Nothing had taken place concerning our Swedish
travels connected with G----, or with India, or with anything relating
to him, or to any member of his family. I recollected quickly enough
our old discussion, and the bargain we had made. I could not discharge
from my mind the impression that G---- must have died, and that his
appearance to me was to be received by me as a proof of a future state.
This was on December 19th, 1799."
In October, 1862, Lord Brougham added as a Postscript:
"I have just been copying out from my Journal the account of this
strange dream. _Certissima mortis imago!_ And now to finish the story
begun about sixty years ago: Soon after my return to Edinborough there
arrived a letter from India announcing G----'s death, and stating that
he died on December 19th."
Lord Brougham attempts to account for this vision by stating that it
was probably a dream. But this is negatived by the fact that he was so
startled by it as to scramble out of the bath in a great hurry--which
would not be at all likely had it been a dream--for, as we know,
nothing surprises us in dreams, or seems unlikely. And even granting
that it were a dream, we still have the _coincidence_ to account for.
_Why_ should Lord Brougham have dreamed this particular dream at the
very moment his friend died? That fact has yet to be accounted for.
THE TYRONE GHOST
This is also known as the Beresford Ghost, and is one of the most
famous cases of its kind on record. The account, as herein given, is
that supplied by the granddaughter of Lady Beresford, to whom the
experience came; and hence may be considered as accurate as it can
be made. It furnishes us with a definite example of a "ghost that
touches," and leaves a permanent mark of its visit, ever afterwards.
Here is the account:
"In the month of October, 1693, Sir Tristram and Lady Beresford went
on a visit to her sister, Lady Macgill, at Gill Hall, now the seat of
Lord Clanwilliam.... One morning Sir Tristram arose early, leaving Lady
Beresford asleep, and went out for a walk before breakfast. When his
wife joined the table very late, her appearance and the embarrassment
of her manner attracted general attention, especially that of her
husband. He made anxious inquiries as to her health, and asked her
apart what had happened to her wrist, which was tied up with black
ribbon tightly bound round it. She earnestly entreated him not to
inquire more then, or thereafter, as to the cause of her wearing or
continuing afterwards to wear that ribbon; 'for,' she added, 'you will
never see me without it.' He replied: 'Since you urge it so vehemently,
I promise you not to inquire more about it.'
"After completing her hurried breakfast, she made inquiries as to
whether the post had yet arrived. It had not yet come in, and Sir
Tristram asked: 'Why are you so particularly eager about letters
to-day?' 'Because I expect to hear of Lord Tyrone's death, which took
place on Tuesday.' 'Well,' remarked Sir Tristram, 'I never put you
down for a superstitious person, but I suppose that some idle dream
has disturbed you.' Shortly after, the servant brought in the letters;
one was sealed with black wax. 'It is as I expected,' she cried, 'he
is dead.' The letter was from Lord Tyrone's steward to inform them
that his master had died in Dublin, on Tuesday, 14 October, at 4 p.m.
Sir Tristram endeavored to console her, and begged her to restrain her
grief, when she assured him that she felt relieved and easier, now
that she knew the actual fact. She added, 'I can now give you a most
satisfactory piece of intelligence, _viz._, that I am with child, and
that it will be a boy.' A son was born the following July.
"On her forty-seventh birthday, Lady Beresford summoned her children
to her side, and said to them: 'I have something of deep importance
to communicate to you, my dear children, before I die. You are no
strangers to the intimacy and affection which subsisted in early life
between Lord Tyrone and myself.... We had made a solemn promise to
one another, that whichever died first should, if permitted, appear
to the other.... One night, years after this interchange of promises,
I was sleeping with your father at Gill Hall, when I suddenly awoke
and discovered Lord Tyrone sitting visibly by the side of the bed. I
screamed out and vainly tried to arouse Sir Tristram. "Tell me," I
said, "Lord Tyrone, why and wherefore are you here at this time of the
night?" "Have you then forgotten our promises to each other, pledged
in early life? I died on Tuesday, at 4 o'clock. I have been permitted
thus to appear.... I am also suffered to inform you that you are with
child, and will produce a son, who will marry an heiress; that Sir
Tristram will not live long, that you will marry again, and you will
die in your forty-seventh year." I begged from him some convincing sign
or proof so that when the morning came I might rely upon it, and that
it was not the phantom of my imagination. He caused the hangings of
the bed to be drawn in an unusual way and impossible manner through
an iron hook. I still was not satisfied, when he wrote his signature
in my pocketbook. I wanted, however, more substantial proof of his
visit, when he laid his hand, which was cold as marble, on my wrist;
the sinews shrunk up, the nerves withered at the touch. "Now," he said,
"let no mortal eye while you live ever see that wrist," and vanished.
While I was conversing with him my thoughts were calm, but as soon as
he disappeared I felt chilled with horror and dismay, a cold sweat came
over me, and I again endeavored, but vainly, to awaken Sir Tristram; a
flood of tears came to my relief, and I fell asleep....'
"That year Lady Beresford died. On her deathbed, Lady Riverson unbound
the black ribbon and found the wrist exactly as Lady Beresford had
described it--every nerve withered, every sinew shrunk...."
"DEAD OR ALIVE"
In the following case the ghost kept its promise to appear--doing
so, to all appearances, in spite of great obstacles. The incident is
reported in Mr. W. T. Stead's _Real Ghost Stories_, pp. 205-8:
"The following incident occurred to me some years ago, and all the
details can be substantiated. The date was August 26, 1867, at
midnight. I was then residing in the neighborhood of Hull, and held an
appointment under the crown which necessitated my repairing thither
every day for a few hours duty. My berth was almost a sinecure; and I
had for some time been engaged to a young north country heiress, it
being understood that on our marriage I should take her name and 'stand
for the county' or rather for one of its divisions.
"For her sake I had to break off a love affair, not of the most
reputable order, with a girl in Hull. I will call her Louise. She was
young, beautiful, and devoted to me. On the night of the 26th of August
we took our last walk together, and a few minutes before midnight
paused on a wooden bridge running across a kind of canal, locally
termed a 'drain.' We paused on the bridge, listening to the swirling
of the current against the wooden piles, and waiting for the stroke
of midnight to part forever. In the few minutes interval she repeated
_sotto voce_, Longfellow's 'Bridge,' the words of which, 'I stood on
the bridge at midnight,' seemed terribly appropriate. After nearly
twenty-five years I can never hear that piece recited without feeling
a deadly chill, and the whole scene of two souls in agony again rising
before me. Well! Midnight struck and we parted; but Louise said: 'Grant
me one favor, the only one that I shall ever ask you on this earth;
promise to meet me here twelve months from to-night at this same hour.'
I demurred at first, thinking it would be bad for both of us, and only
re-open partially-healed wounds. At last, however, I consented, saying,
'Well, I will come if I am alive.' But she said, 'Say alive or dead.' I
said, 'Very well, then, we will meet, dead or alive.'
"The next year I was on the spot a few minutes before the time; and,
punctual to the stroke of midnight, Louise arrived. By this time I had
begun to regret the arrangement I had made; but it was of too solemn a
nature to put aside. I therefore kept the appointment; but said that
I did not care to renew the compact. Louise, however, persuaded me to
renew it for one more year; and I consented, much against my will; and
we again left each other, repeating the same formula, 'Dead or Alive.'
"The next year after passed rapidly until the first week in July,
when I was shot dangerously in the thigh by a fisherman named Thomas
Piles, of Hull, a reputed smuggler. A party of four of us had hired
his ten-ton yawl to go yachting round the Yorkshire coast, and amuse
ourselves by shooting sea-birds amongst the millions of them at
Flamborough Head. The third or fourth day out I was shot in the right
thigh by the skipper Piles; and the day after, one and a quarter ounce
of number 2 shot were cut out therefrom by the coastguard surgeon at
Bridlington Quay (whose name I forget for the moment), assisted by Dr.
Alexander Mackey, at the Black Lion hotel. The affair was in all the
papers at the time, about a column of it appearing in the _Eastern
Morning News_, of Hull.
"As soon as I was able to be removed (two or three weeks) I was taken
home, where Dr. Melburne King, of Hull, attended me. The day--and the
night--(the 26th of August) came. I was then unable to walk without
crutches, and that for only a short distance, so had to be wheeled
about in a Bath chair. The distance to the trysting place being rather
long, and the time and the circumstances being very peculiar, I did
not avail myself of the services of my usual attendant, but specially
retained an old servant of the family, who frequently did confidential
commissions for me, and who knew Miss Louise well. We set forth
'without beat of drum' and arrived at the bridge about a few minutes
to midnight. I remember that it was a brilliant starlight night, but I
do not think that there was any moon--at all events, at that hour. 'Old
Bob,' as he was always affectionately called, wheeled me to the bridge,
helped me out of the Bath chair, and gave me my crutch. I walked on to
the bridge, and leaned my back against the white painted rail top, then
lighted my briar-root, and had a comfortable smoke.
"I was very much annoyed that I had allowed myself to be persuaded to
come a second time, and determined to tell Louise positively that this
should be our last meeting. Besides, _now_, I did not consider it fair
to Miss K., with whom I was again 'negotiating.' So, if anything, it
was in rather a sulky frame of mind that I awaited Louise. Just as the
quarters before the hour began to chime I distinctly heard the 'clink,
clink' of the little brass heels, which she always wore, sounding on
the long flagged causeway, leading for 200 yards up to the bridge.
As she got nearer, I could see her pass lamp after lamp in rapid
succession, while the strokes of the large clock at Hull resounded
through the stilly night.
"At last the patter, patter of the tiny feet sounded on the woodwork
of the bridge, and I saw her distinctly pass under the lamp at my
side. When she got close to me I saw that she had neither hat nor cape
on, and concluded that she had taken a cab at the further end of the
flagged causeway, and (it being a very warm night) had left her wraps
in the cab, and, for purposes of effect, had come the short distance in
evening dress.
"'Clink, clink,' went the brass heels, and she seemed about passing me,
when I suddenly, urged by an impulse of affection, stretched out my
arms to receive her. She passed _through_ them, intangible, impalpable,
and as she looked at me I distinctly saw her lips move, and form the
words 'Dead or Alive.' I even heard the words, but not with my outward
ears, with something else, some other sense--what, I know not. I felt
startled, surprised, but not afraid, until a moment afterwards, when I
_felt_, but could not see, some other presence following her. I could
_feel_, though I could not _hear_, the heavy, clumsy thud of feet
following her; and my blood seemed turned to ice. Recovering myself
with an effort, I shouted out to Old Bob, who was safely ensconsed
with the Bath chair in a nook out of sight round the corner: 'Bob, who
passed you just now?' In an instant the old Yorkshire-man was by my
side. 'Ne'er a one passed me, sir.' 'Nonsense, Bob,' I replied, 'I told
you that I was coming to meet Miss Louise, and she just passed me on
the bridge, and _must_ have passed you, because there is no where else
she _could_ go. You don't mean to tell me you didn't see her?' The old
man replied solemnly: 'Maister Rob, there's something uncanny about it.
I heered her come on the bridge, and off it, and I knaw them clickety
heels onywhere! but I'm domned, sir, if she passed me! I'm thinking
we'd better gang.' And 'gang' we did; and it was the small hours of the
morning (getting daylight) before we left off talking over the affair,
and went to bed.
"The next day I made inquiries from Louise's family about her, and
ascertained that she had died in Liverpool three months previously,
being apparently delirious for a few hours before her death, and, our
parting compact evidently weighing on her mind, as she kept repeating,
'Dead or Alive--shall I be there?'--to the utter bewilderment of her
friends, who could not divine her meaning--being, of course, entirely
unaware of our agreement."
* * * * *
This completes the examples of the so-called "Pact" cases. In the
following example, the phantasmal form conveyed a piece of information
to the percipient which he could not well have known by any normal
means.
THE SCRATCH ON THE CHEEK
The case appeared in the _Proceedings_ of the Amer. S. P. R., and the
high character of the witnesses was vouched for by Dr. Hodgson and
Prof. Royce. It is to the following effect:
"_January 11, 1888._
"Sir: Replying to your recently published request for actual
occurrences of psychical phenomena, I respectively submit the following
remarkable occurrence to the consideration of your distinguished
Society, with the assurance that the event made a more powerful
impression upon my mind than the combined incidents of my whole
life.... I was never in better health or possessed a clearer head and
mind than at the time the incident occurred.
"In 1867, my only sister, a young lady of eighteen years, died suddenly
of cholera, in St. Louis, Mo. My attachment for her was very strong,
and the blow a severe one to me. A year or so after her death, I became
a commercial traveller, and it was in 1876, while on one of my Western
trips that the event occurred.
"I had 'drummed' the city of St. Joseph, Mo., and had gone to my room
at the Pacific House to send in my orders, which were unusually large
ones, so that I was in a very happy frame of mind indeed. My thoughts,
of course, were about these orders, knowing how pleased my house would
be at my success. I had not been thinking of my late sister, or in
any manner reflecting on the past. The hour was high noon, and the
sun was shining cheerfully into my room. While busy smoking a cigar,
and writing out my orders, I suddenly became conscious that some one
was sitting on my left, with one arm resting on the table. Quick as a
flash I turned, and distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, and for
a brief second or two looked her squarely in the face; and so sure was
I that it was she, that I sprang forward in delight, calling her by
name, and, as I did so, the apparition instantly vanished. Naturally I
was startled and dumbfounded, almost doubting my senses; but the cigar
in my mouth, and pen in hand, with the ink still moist on my letter,
I satisfied myself I had not been dreaming and was still awake. I was
near enough to touch her, had it been a physical possibility, and noted
her features, expression, and details of dress, etc. She appeared as
if alive. Her eyes looked kindly and perfectly naturally into mine.
Her skin was so perfectly life-like that I could see the glow or
moisture in the surface, and, on the whole there was no change in her
appearance, otherwise than when alive.
"Now comes the most remarkable confirmation of my statement, which
cannot be doubted by those who know what I state actually occurred.
This visitation, or whatever you may call it, so impressed me that I
took the next train home, and in the presence of my parents and others
I related what had occurred. My father, a man of rare good sense and
very practical, was inclined to ridicule me, as he saw how earnestly
I believed what I stated; but he, too, was amazed when later on I
told them of a bright red line or _scratch_ on the right-hand side of
my sister's face, which I distinctly had seen. When I mentioned this
my mother rose trembling to her feet and nearly fainted away, and
as soon as she had sufficiently recovered her self-possession, with
tears streaming down her face, she exclaimed that I had indeed seen
my sister, as no living mortal but herself was aware of that scratch,
which she had actually made while doing some little act of kindness
after my sister's death. She said she well remembered how pained she
was to think she should have, unintentionally, marred the features
of her dead daughter, and that, unknown to all, she had carefully
obliterated all traces of the slight scratch with the aid of powder,
etc., and that she had never mentioned it to a human being, from that
day to this.... Yet I saw the scratch as bright as if just made...."
[Confirmatory statements were obtained from the narrator's father and
brother; his mother having died in the interval.]
A GHOST IN HAMPTON COURT
Miss X. (Mrs. Hans Spoer) relates the following interesting case, as
occurring to herself, on a visit to the well-known Hampton Court.
(_Essays in Psychical Research_, pp. 31-34):
"I recently found myself the guest of a lady occupying a pleasant suite
of rooms in Hampton Court Palace. For obvious reasons I cannot specify
the name of my hostess, the exact date of my visit, or the precise
whereabouts of her apartment.
"Of course I was familiar with the Hampton Court ghost legend.... I
examined the scene of the occurrences, and was allowed to ask questions
at will. The ghost, I was told, visited habitually in a dozen different
rooms--not, however, in the bright, dainty drawing room in which we
were chatting, and where it was difficult to believe that we were
discussing recent history.
"As a matter of fact, it was very recent, indeed. But a few nights
earlier, in a certain small but cheerful bedroom, a little girl had
been awakened out of her sleep by a visitant so dramatic that I
wondered whether the child had possibly gone to sleep again, after her
original fright, and dreamed the later and more sensational part of the
story.
"My room was quaintly pretty, but somewhat peculiar in arrangement, and
lighted only from the roof. I have seen 'ghosts' before, have slept for
months together in haunted houses; and, though I find such visitants
somewhat exciting, I cannot say that my prospects for the night filled
me with any degree of apprehension.
"At dinner and during the evening ghostly topics were avoided; there
were other guests, and music and chat occupied us till 11 o'clock,
when my hostess accompanied me to my room. I asked various questions
as to my neighbours above and below, and the exact position of other
members of the household, with a view to knowing how to interpret any
sounds which might occur. About a third of the ceiling of my room was
skylight; the servant's bedroom being situated over the remainder. Two
sides of the room were bounded by a corridor, into which it opened;
a third of the wall by the state apartments, while the fourth opened
by folding doors upon a room for the time unoccupied (except by a cat,
asleep upon a chair) out of which there opened a door, leading by a
secret passage to the bank of the river.
"I ascertained that the folding doors were locked; moreover, a heavy
table stood against them on the outer side, and a wardrobe on the
inner. The bedstead was a small one, without curtains; indeed, the room
contained no hangings whatever. The door into the room opened so nearly
to the head of my bed that there was space only for a small table, upon
which I took care to place two long candles, and a plentiful supply of
matches, being somewhat addicted to late and early reading.
"I was tired, but a sense of duty demanded that I should not sleep
through the 'witching hours,' so I sat up in bed, and gave my best
attention to Lord Farrer's problem, 'Shall We Degrade our Standard
of Value?' in the current number of the _National Review_, and, on
the principle of always trying to see both sides of a question,
thought of several reasons why we should not, with the author, come
to a negative conclusion. The matter did not, however, excite me to
the pitch of wakefulness; and when I finished the article, as the
clock struck half-past one, I considered myself absolved from further
responsibility, put out my lights, and was asleep before the next
quarter sounded.
"Nearly three hours later I was suddenly awakened from dreamless
slumber by the sound of the opening of a door against which some piece
of furniture was standing, in, as it seemed, the empty room to my
right. I remembered the cat, and tried to conceive by what kind of
'rampaging' she could contrive to be so noisy. A minute later there
followed a thud apparently on _this_ side of the folding doors, and too
heavy for even the prize animals of my home circle, not to speak of a
mongrel stray, newly adopted and not yet doing credit to her keep! 'A
dress fallen in the wardrobe,' was my next thought, and I stretched out
my hand for the match-box, as a preliminary to enquiry.
"I did not reach the matches. It seemed to me that a restraining
hand was laid upon mine; I withdrew it quickly, and gazed around me
in the darkness. Some minutes passed in blackness and silence. I had
the sensation of a presence in the room, and finally, mindful of the
tradition that a ghost should be spoken to, I said gently: 'Is anyone
there? Can I do anything for you?' I remembered that the last person
who entertained the ghost had said: 'Go away, I don't want you!' and I
hoped that my visitor would admire my better manners and be responsive.
However, there was no answer--no sound of any kind; and returning to
my theory of the cat and the fallen dress, though nevertheless so far
influenced by the recollection of those detaining fingers as not to
attempt to strike a light, I rose and walked round my bed, keeping
the right hand on the edge of the bedstead, while, with my left arm
extended, I swept the surrounding space. As the room is small, I thus
fairly well satisfied myself that it contained nothing unusual.
"I was, though somewhat perplexed, about to grant myself license to
go to sleep again, when in the darkness before me there began to glow
a soft light. I watched it increase in brightness and in extent. It
seemed to radiate from a central point, which gradually took form
and became a tall, slight woman, moving slowly across the room from
the folding doors on my right. As she passed the foot of my bed I
felt a slight vibration of the spring mattress. At the further corner
she stopped, so that I had time to observe her profile and general
appearance. Her face was insipidly pretty; that of a woman from thirty
to thirty-five years of age, her figure slight, her dress of a soft
dark material, having a full skirt and broad sash or soft waist-band
tied high up, almost under her arms, a crossed or draped 'kerchief over
the shoulders, sleeves which I noticed fitted very tight below the
elbow, and hair which was dressed so as not to lie flat to the head,
either in curls or bows, I could not tell which. As she appeared to
stand between me and the light, I cannot speak with any certainty as
to the color, but the dress, though dark, was, I think, not black. In
spite of all this definiteness, I was, of course, conscious that the
figure was unsubstantial, and I felt guilty of absurdity in asking once
more: 'Will you let me help you? Can I be of use to you?'
"My voice sounded preternaturally loud, but I felt no surprise at
noticing that it produced no effect upon my visitor. She stood still
for perhaps two minutes--though it is very difficult to estimate time
on such occasions. She then raised her hands, which were long and
white, and held them before her as she sank upon her knees and slowly
buried the face in her palms, in the attitude of prayer--when, quite
suddenly, the light went out, and I was alone in the darkness.
"I felt that the scene was ended, the curtain down, and had no
hesitation in lighting the candle at my side.
"I tried to examine the impression the vision conveyed. I felt that it
was definitely that of reproach, yet of gentle resignation. There was
no force, no passion; I had seen a meek, sad woman who had succumbed. I
began to turn over in my mind the illustrious names of former occupants
of the chamber. I fixed on one--a bad man of the worst kind, a mad
fool of that time of wickedness and folly, the Regency--I thought of
the secret passage in the next room, and began to weave an elaborate
romance.
"'This will not do here and now,' I reflected, as the clock struck
four; and, as an act of mental discipline, I returned to my _National
Review_.... I turned to Mr. Myers' article on 'The Drift of Psychical
Research,' which I had already seen. I read:
"'... Where telepathy operates, many intelligences may affect our
own. Some of these are the minds of living persons, but some appear
to be discarnate, to be spirits like ourselves, but released from the
body, although still retaining much of the personality of earth. These
spirits appear still to have some knowledge of our world, and to be in
certain ways able to affect it.'
"Here was, so to speak, the text of my illustration. I had quite enough
to think about--more than I needed for that occasion. I never heard the
clock strike five!
* * * * *
"Let us try to examine this, a type of many ghost stories.
"Elsewhere I have classified visions of persons, whether seen in the
crystal or otherwise, as:
"1. Visions of the living, clairvoyant or telepathic, usually
accompanied by their own background, or adapting themselves to mine.
"2. Visions of the departed, having no obvious relations to time and
space.
"3. Visions which are more or less of the nature of pictures, such
as those which I voluntarily produce in the crystal from memory or
imagination, or which appear in the background of real persons as
illustrative of their thoughts of history. This is very often the case
when an impression reaches me in visual form from the mind of a friend
who, it may be, imperfectly remembers or is imperfectly informed as to
the form and color of the picture his mind conveys.
"Again I emphasize the fact that I am speculating, not
dogmatizing--that I am speaking from internal evidence, with no
possibility of corroboration, and that I am perfectly aware that
each reader must take this for what it seems to him worth. Such being
the case, I venture to classify the vision under Class III. Again,
to borrow from Mr. Myers, I believe that what I saw may have been
a _telepathic impression of the dreams_ (or I should prefer to say
'_thoughts_') _of the dead_. If what I saw were indeed veridical or
truth-telling--if my readers will agree to admit that what I saw was
no mere illusion, or morbid hallucination, or imagination (taking the
word in its commonly-accepted sense)--then I believe that my visitor
was not a departed spirit, such as it has before now, perhaps, been
my privilege to meet, but rather an image as such--just as the figure
which, it may be, sits at my dining table is not _really_ the friend
whose visit a few hours later it announces, but only a representation
of him, having no objective existence apart from the truth of the
information it conveys--a thought which is personal to the brain which
thinks it.
"I have already said that, preconceived notions apart, I had no
impression of reality. I recognized that what I saw and felt was an
externalization of impressions unconsciously received, possibly from
some discarnate mind...."
HALF-PAST ONE O'CLOCK
The following case is in many ways classical. Mrs. Claughton, to whom
the experience came, was a widowed lady, living in good social circles.
The full account of her experience is to be found in the _Proceedings_
of the Society for Psychical Research (Vol. XI., pp. 547-59), and
contains statements and personal investigations by Dr. Ferrier, Andrew
Lang, Mr. Myers and the Marquis of Bute as well as corroborative
testimony from the Clerk at Meresby, Mrs. Claughton's governess, copies
of letters, diaries, memoranda, etc. The whole case is very complicated
and impressive; and embodies a combination of apparent spirit
communication, clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, apparitions,
and supernormal dreams. The chief and most interesting account is the
statement made by Mrs. Claughton to the Marquis of Bute, and recorded
by him as follows:
"She was staying in 1893 with her two children at 6 Blake St., a house
belonging to Mrs. Appleby, daughter of the late Mrs. Blackburn ...
but let to Mrs. Buckley. She had heard the house was haunted, and may
have heard that the ghost was Mrs. Blackburn's. She had been told also
that water was spilt on the floors inexplicably. They arrived on
October 4th. About 1.15 a.m., Monday, October 9th, Mrs. Claughton was
in bed with one of her children, the other sleeping in the room. Mrs.
Claughton had offered to be of any use she could to Miss Buckley, who
had arrived from London on the Saturday, not feeling very well. She
had been asleep, and was awakened by the footsteps of a person coming
downstairs, whom she supposed to be a servant coming to call her. The
steps stopped at the door. The sounds were repeated twice more at the
interval of a few moments. Mrs. Claughton rose, lit the candle, and
opened the door. There was no one there. She noticed the clock outside
pointed to 1.20 a.m. She shut the door, got into bed, read, and,
leaving the candle burning, went to sleep. Woke up, finding the candle
spluttering out. Heard a sound like a sigh. Saw a woman standing by
the bed. She had a soft white shawl round the shoulders, held by the
right hand towards the left shoulder, bending slightly forwards. Mrs.
Claughton thinks the hair was lightish brown, and the shawl partly
over the head, but does not remember distinctly, and has no impression
of the rest of the dress; it was not grave-clothes. She said: 'Follow
me.' Mrs. Claughton rose, took the candle, and followed her out of
the room, across the passage, and into the drawing-room. She had no
recollection as to the opening of the doors. The house maid next day
declared that the drawing-room door had been locked by her. On entering
the drawing-room, Mrs. Claughton, finding the candle on the point of
extinction, replaced it by a pink one from the chiffonier near the
door. The figure nearly at the end of the room, turned three-quarters
round, said 'to-morrow,' and disappeared. Mrs. Claughton returned to
the bedroom, where she found her elder child (not the one in the bed)
sitting up. It asked: 'Who is the lady in white?' Mrs. Claughton thinks
she answered the child: 'It's only me--mother; go to sleep,' or the
like words, and hushed her to sleep in her arms. The baby remained fast
asleep. She lit the gas and remained awake for some two hours, then put
out the lights and went to sleep. Had no fear while seeing the figure,
but was upset after seeing it. Would not be prepared to swear that she
might not have walked in her sleep. Pink candle, partly burned, in her
room in morning. Does not know if she took it burnt or new.
"In the morning she spoke to Mr. Buckley, on whose advice she went to
ask Dr. Ferrier as to the figure about 3 p.m. He and his wife said
the description was like that of Mrs. Blackburn, whom Mrs. Claughton
already suspected it to be. Thinks Dr. Ferrier already told her that
Miss Blackburn (Mrs. Appleby) had seen her mother in the same house.
Mrs. Claughton cannot recognize the photograph of Mrs. Blackburn shown
to her by Mr. Y. (who got it from Mrs. M.). She says the figure seemed
smaller, and the features were more pinched and attenuated, like those
of a person in the last stages of consumption, which was also the
general appearance. By his advice, Mr. Buckley put an electric bell
under Mrs. Claughton's pillow, communicating with Miss Buckley's room,
as Mrs. Claughton determined to sit up that night and watch.
"That night Mrs. Claughton sat up dressed, with the gas burning. About
12 she partly undressed, put on a dressing gown, and lay down outside
the bed, gas still burning, and fell asleep reading. Woke up and found
the same woman as before, but the expression even more agitated. She
bent over Mrs. Claughton and said: 'I have come, listen.' She then made
a certain statement and asked Mrs. Claughton to do certain things.
Mrs. Claughton said: 'Am I dreaming, or is it true?' The figure said
something like: 'If you doubt me, you will find that the date of my
marriage was * * *.' (This was the date of the marriage, which took
place in India, of Mrs. Blackburn to Mr. Blackburn, who is alive and
married again. Mrs. Claughton first learned the corroboration of the
date from Dr. Ferrier on the following Thursday). After this Mrs.
Claughton saw a man standing on Mrs. B.'s left hand--tall, dark, well
made, healthy, sixty years old, or more, ordinary man's day clothes,
kind, good expression. A conversation ensued between the three, in
course of which man stated himself to be George Howard, buried in
Meresby Churchyard (Mrs. Claughton had never heard of Meresby or of
George Howard) and gave the date of his marriage * * * and death * * *.
[Entries of these dates seen by me in Mrs. Claughton's pocketbook, as
torn out and lent to me. F. W. H. Myers.] He desired Mrs. Claughton to
go to Meresby and verify these dates in the registration, and, if found
correct, to go to the church at the ensuing 1.15 a.m. and wait at the
grave therein (S. W. corner of S. aisle) of Richard Hart, died * * *,
ætat * * *. She was to verify this reference also in the registers.
He said her railway ticket would not be taken, and she was to send it
along with a white rose from his grave to Dr. Ferrier. Forbade her
having any previous communication with the place, or going in her own
name. Said Joseph Wright, a dark man, to whom she should describe him,
would help her. That she would lodge with a woman who would tell her
that she had a child (drowned) buried in the same churchyard. When Mrs.
Claughton had done all this, she should hear the rest of the history.
Towards the end of the conversation, Mrs. Claughton saw a third
phantom, that of a man whose name she is not free to give, in great
trouble, standing, with hands on face (which he afterwards lowered,
showing face) behind Mrs. Blackburn's right. The three disappeared.
Mrs. Claughton rose and went to the door to look out at the clock, but
was seized with faintness, returned and rang the electric bell. Mr.
Buckley found her on the ground. She was able to ask the time, which
was about 1.20 a.m. Then fainted, and the Buckleys undressed her and
put her to bed.
"That morning, Tuesday, Mrs. Claughton sent for Dr. Ferrier, who
corroborated certain matters so far as she asked him, and ascertained
for her the date of Mrs. Blackburn's marriage (she received his note
of the date on Thursday). She went to the Post Office, and found that
Meresby existed. Returned, and ascertained that it was in Suffolk,
and so wrote that evening to Dr. Ferrier, and went to London with her
daughters that (Thursday) evening.
"Friday night, Mrs. Claughton dreamt that she arrived at 5, after
dusk, that a fair was going on, and that she had to go to place after
place to get lodgings. Also, she and her eldest daughter dreamt that
she would fail if she did not go alone. Went to Station for 12 noon
train on Saturday. Went to refreshment room for luncheon, telling
porter to call her in time. He went by mistake to waiting room, and
she missed train and had to wait (going to the British Museum, where
she wrote her name in Jewel room) until 3.5, as stated. House where
she finally found lodgings was that of Joseph Wright, who turned out
to be the parish clerk. She sent for the curate by porter, to ask as
to consulting registers, but as he was dining out he did not come till
after she had gone to bed. Sunday morning, Mrs. Wright spoke to her
about the drowned child buried in the churchyard. Went to forenoon
service, and immediately afterwards went into vestry and verified the
registers; described George Howard to Joseph Wright, who had known him
and recognized description; then was taken by Joseph Wright to the
graves of Richard Hart and George Howard. On the latter there is no
stone, but three mounds surrounded by a railing overgrown with white
roses. She gathered rose for Dr. Ferrier, as had been directed. Walked
and talked with curate, who was not sympathetic. After luncheon went
with Mrs. Wright and walked round Howard's house (country house in
park). Attended evening service, and afterwards, while, watching the
lights put out and the church furniture covered up, wondered if she
would have the nerve to go on. Back to supper; afterwards slept and had
dream of a terrorizing character, whereof has full written description.
Dark night, hardly any moon, a few stars. To church with Joseph Wright
at 1 a.m., with whom searched interior and found it empty. At 1.20
a.m. was locked in alone, having no light; had been told to take
Bible, but had only church-service, which she had left in vestry in
the morning. Waited near grave of Richard Hart; felt no fear. Received
communication, but does not feel free to give any detail; no light.
History begun at Blake street then completed. Was directed to take
another white rose from George Howard's grave and gathered rose for
Miss Howard, as had been directed. Home and bed, and slept well for the
first time since first seeing Mrs. Blackburn.
"Next day went and sketched church and identified grave of Mrs. Rose,
on whose grave, she had been told in church, she would find a message
for herself. The words engraved were * * *.
"Then called on Miss Howard and recognized strong likeness to her
father. Carried out all things desired by the dead to the full, as
had been requested. Has had no communication from any of them since.
Nothing since has appeared in Blake street. The wishes expressed to
her were not illogical or unreasonable, as the ratiocination of dreams
often appears, but perfectly rational, reasonable, and of natural
importance."
MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY
The following narrative was told to me by a very well-known artist; who
maintains the strict accuracy of every word in his account, as given
below:
"I had been living in Paris for some months when I decided to change
my quarters, and move into a studio more in keeping with my present
allowance. After a brief search, I saw one which exactly suited me. It
was a large room, at the end of a long, dark rambling passage, with
doors leading into other studios on either side all the way down. As my
neighbours turned out to be a very jolly, happy crew, I liked the life
immensely, and everything promised well for the new abode.
"I had been there for, perhaps, two weeks when I had my first 'ghostly'
adventure. I had been out rather late, having had late supper, and
perhaps a little too much wine for my best health. At the same time, I
was absolutely sober, and in full possession of all my senses. I felt a
little happy and convivial--that was all.
"Walking along the passage, I was approaching my door when I distinctly
heard the rustle of a silk skirt walking down the passage ahead of
me. As the hallway was dark, I could not see whether or not the girl
was just in front of me, or some distance away. It never for a moment
struck me that it was not a flesh-and-blood visitant. My only thought
was: One of the boys has been having a little supper, and this must
be one of his visitors going home. I called aloud: 'Mayn't I strike
a light and show you the way along this dark hall?' And, suiting the
action to the word, I struck a match, and held it up over my head.
Nothing was visible! I peered into vacancy; no female figure could
I see. I listened for the sound of steps, or the swish of a silken
petticoat; but not a sound could I hear. I walked along the passage;
not a sign of life was anywhere manifest. Everything was dark, lonely
and deserted.
"I came to the conclusion that I must have been deceived; and thought
no more about it. I went to bed and to sleep.
"It was, perhaps, two nights later when the same thing occurred. Coming
home, about 10 o'clock at night, I heard the same swish of the skirt;
the same soft, feminine footsteps. This time the hall was light, and I
could _see_ that no one was there. I recalled the incident of the other
evening, and a cold chill began to creep up my backbone. I entered my
room, however, lit the lamp, leaving my door open. 'Now,' thought I,
'if anyone passes that door again, I shall surely see them.' I put on a
dressing gown and a pair of slippers, and sat down to read--facing the
door.
"Perhaps five minutes had elapsed when I saw the door very slowly
open still further on its hinges. A moment later I felt in the room a
'Presence,' which I distinctly felt to be that of a young woman, about
twenty years of age. So vivid was the mental picture I formed of this
person that her very features and coloring were sensed by me--though,
of course, I had no means of knowing whether or not I was right.
"The Presence glided across the room, and sat itself upon the edge of
my sofa, about three feet distant from where I sat. I looked at the
spot intently, and felt that the eyes of my invisible visitor were
upon me, regarding me intently, as though studying my character to the
best of her ability. She had a comfortable sort of feeling about her,
which made me seem at once at home with her; so that, without further
ceremony, I said to the Presence: 'Pray make yourself at home. If I can
do anything for you, let me know.'
"I waited, but of course there was no response. Only I thought I caught
again the faintest rustle of silk, as the figure seated itself in a
more comfortable position. I put down my book, and began to paint. The
feeling of loneliness, which I had experienced ever since my removal
into the new studio, vanished immediately. I felt that a living,
human--if invisible--being was with me, watching my work and keeping me
company during the long hours of discouragement and unproductive effort.
"Several times, during the course of the evening, I spoke to the
Presence; but received no reply. Only I felt its proximity, and knew
when the figure changed its position, as it did once or twice. Once it
came over and stood by my side, as though looking at the canvas, and
criticising it with me. Then it went back to its seat at the end of
the sofa.
"Bed time came. I felt almost abashed to go to bed with this feminine
presence in the room! However, as there was nothing left for me to do,
I undressed, got into bed, and blew out the light. The Presence came
over and sat on the side of my bed. When I went to sleep, it was still
sitting there.
"The next morning it had gone. I felt inexpressibly lonely. I missed
the Presence, whom I now began to call 'Her' instead of 'It,' and
wished she would return and keep me company! It did not do so, however,
until the following evening, when, about nine o'clock, I again felt her
approach, felt her entrance through my studio door, and felt her seat
herself in my easy chair, and turn her eyes upon me. I knew that she
was regarding me intently--perhaps critically--and I felt almost angry
that I, in turn, could not see her. I gazed at the chair _determined_
to see her; but nothing save empty space met my gaze! With a gesture of
impatience and irritation, I turned away, and went on with my painting.
"Presently, I was aware that She was standing beside me, examining
the painting upon the easel. 'Well, do you like it?' I said almost
caustically. The Presence immediately returned and sat in the chair,
and I knew that I had offended Her. I threw my brush and pallet aside
and apologized. So she came and stood by me again; and again she
remained with me until I closed my eyes in sleep.
"This sort of thing went on for several weeks. Every evening the
Presence visited me, kept me company, making the day seem long and
dreary until she came. I waited for her appearance with growing
impatience. I could never see or feel anything; my spoken words
brought no response; yet there she was; and I felt just as assured of
the presence, in my studio, of a feminine spiritual being as of my
own existence. Every evening the Presence was with me when I went to
sleep; every morning it had vanished. The sense of friendliness and
companionship was complete and unmistakable.
"One evening my visitor failed to appear! I could do no work; I
paced the floor, I could do nothing, think of nothing! The sense of
desolation and loneliness was absolute. I hardly realized, until then,
how completely I had grown accustomed to the presence of my invisible
visitor. I missed her more than I ever dreamed I could miss anyone in
life. Forlorn and forsaken, I went to bed, and finally dropped into a
fitful and broken sleep.
"For about a week things went on in this way. I had grown gradually
reconciled to my lonely life, and was painting hard for an exhibition
which was near at hand. One evening I came into the studio, and I found
the Presence waiting for me--seated in the easy chair, by the fire.
"I felt my heart and whole being give a throb of joy and
recognition--just as it would at the sight of an old and very dear
friend. I knew how much I had missed her! I knew that She had risen,
and was standing, facing me, as I entered. Before I had time to check
myself, or think what I was doing, I had rushed forward, crying
'Dearest,' with outstretched arms, and had embraced the spot where I
knew her to be standing! I grasped the empty air, but I somehow felt
two hands placed upon my shoulders, and the imprint of a delicate kiss
upon my lips.
"I no longer felt lonely. I whistled, I sang, I took off my coat,
and, donning jacket and slippers, set to work with joy upon my
picture. I painted hard, and all the while the Presence stood by me,
criticising--approving or disapproving--and in every instance I felt
Her criticism and judgment to be right.
"A year went by. I had to give up my studio, and return to America, on
my father's sudden death. The parting with the Presence I shall never
forget. Had two lovers in the flesh parted from one another, it could
not have been more real, more touching, more sincere. For my own part I
was heartbroken. The Presence, too, I knew to be weeping. The parting
was long and sorrowful. Finally, I tore myself away.
"I have never seen or felt anything from that day to this. But of
the reality and objective existence of that Presence I am as assured
as I am of any event in my life. No one can tell me that it was a
trick of the imagination--I know better! She was as real to me as any
personality I have ever known. Yes, the Unreal is Real, of that I have
no doubt whatever. My own experience with the Ghostly world has proved
that to _my_ satisfaction!"
CHAPTER IV
HAUNTED HOUSES
When "phantasms of the dead" constantly appear in one house, and
there only, that house is said to be "haunted" and, in such a case,
the phantasms seem to be attracted to the _locality_ more than to the
individuals living in it. This is usually the case in so-called haunted
houses; no matter _who_ lives within them, they one and all see the
spectral forms; but this is not invariably so. In the case of the
"Great Amherst Mystery," for example--given below--the haunting seemed
to be associated with the _person_ more than the _house_, so that we
might be said to have here a case of a Haunted Man (or Woman). But this
is the exception, not the rule.
The cases that follow are all well-attested; and the phenomena have
been witnessed by many persons. The original Reports, for the most
part, have appeared in the _Proceedings_ of the S. P. R., and the facts
were carefully investigated at the time, by competent investigators.
The first instance is particularly interesting, because of the
experiments which were tried to ascertain the nature of the "ghost,"
and if many more such experiments were conducted, we might hope, in
time, to know something about them. I shall begin with a carefully
recorded example, which I may call--
THE RECORD OF A HAUNTED HOUSE
The case of a haunted house here given is very well authenticated, and
corroborated by six written and signed statements, as well as that
of the original informant. The account originally appeared in the
_Proceedings_ of the S. P. R., Vol. VIII., pp. 311-32, and is drawn up
by Miss Morton, a lady of scientific training who resided for a long
time in the house in question. She was well-known to Mr. Myers, then
Hon. Sec. of the Society. Very interesting experiments were conducted
to test the nature of the "ghost" as the following brief account will
show:
"My father took the house in March, 1882, none of us having then heard
of anything unusual about the house. We moved in towards the end of
April, and it was not until the following June that I first saw the
apparition.
"I had gone up to my room, but was not yet in bed, when I heard
someone at the door, and went to it, thinking it might be my mother.
On opening the door, I saw no one; but on going a few steps along the
passage I saw the figure of a tall lady, dressed in black, standing at
the head of the stairs. After a few moments she descended the stairs,
and I followed for a short distance, feeling curious what it could be.
I had only a small piece of candle, and it suddenly burnt itself out;
and, being unable to see more, I went back to my room.
"On the night of August 2, the footsteps were heard by my three sisters
and by the cook, all of whom slept on the top landing--also by my
married sister, Mrs. K., who was sleeping on the floor below. They all
said the next morning that they had heard them very plainly pass and
repass their doors.... These footsteps are very characteristic, and are
not at all like those of any people in the house; they are soft and
rather slow, though decided and even. My sisters would not go out on
the landing after hearing them pass, but each time when I have gone out
after hearing them, I have seen the figure there.
"On the evening of August 1, we were sitting in the drawing-room,
with the gas lit but the shutters not shut, the light outside getting
dusk--my brothers and a friend having just given up tennis, finding it
too dark; my elder sister, Mrs. E., and myself both saw the figure on
the balcony outside, looking in at the window. She stood there some
minutes, then walked to the end and back again, after which she seemed
to disappear. She soon after came into the drawing-room, when I saw
her, but my sister did not.
"The apparitions were (always) of exactly the same type, seen in the
same places by the same people, at varying intervals.
"The footsteps continued, and were heard by several visitors and new
servants, who had taken the places of those who had left, as well as by
myself, four sisters and brothers; in all by about twenty people, many
of them not having previously heard of the apparitions and sounds.
"Other sounds were also heard in addition which seemed gradually to
increase in intensity. They consisted in walking up and down on the
second floor landing, of bumps against the doors of the bedrooms, and
of the handles of the doors turning. The bumps against the doors were
so marked as to terrify a new servant, who had heard nothing of the
haunting, into the belief that burglars were breaking into her room....
"During the year, at Mr. Myers' suggestion, I kept a photographic
camera constantly ready to try to photograph the figure, but on the
few occasions I was able to do so, I got no result; at night, usually
only by candle light, a long exposure would be necessary for so dark a
figure, and this I could not obtain.
"I also tried to communicate with the figure, constantly speaking to
it and asking it to make signs, if not able to speak, but with no
result. I also tried especially to _touch_ her, but did not succeed. On
cornering her, as I did once or twice, she vanished.
"One night, my sister E. went up to her room on the second story, but
as she passed the room where my two sisters L. and M. were sleeping,
they opened their door to say that they had heard noises, and also
seen what they described as a _flame_ of a candle, without candle or
handle visible, cross the room diagonally from corner to corner. Two
of the maids opened the doors of their two bedrooms, and said that
they also heard noises; they all 5 stood at their doors with their
lighted candles for some little time. They all heard steps walking up
and down the landing between them; as they passed they felt a sensation
which they described as a 'cold wind' though their candles were not
blown out. They saw nothing. The steps then descended the stairs,
re-ascended, again descended, and did not return....
"The figure became much less substantial on its later appearances. Up
to about 1886 it was so solid and life-like that it was often mistaken
for a real person. It gradually became less distinct. At all times it
intercepted the light; we have not been able to ascertain if it cast a
shadow. I should mention that it has been seen through window glass,
and that I myself wear glasses habitually, though none of the other
percipients do so. The upper part of the figure always left a more
distinct impression than the lower, but this may partly be due to the
fact that one naturally looks at people's faces before their feet.
PROOFS OF IMMATERIALITY
"1. I have several times fastened fine strings across the stairs at
various heights before going to bed, but after all others have gone up
to their rooms.... I have twice, at least, seen the figure pass through
the cords, leaving them intact.
"2. The sudden and complete disappearance of the figure while still in
full view.
"3. The impossibility of touching the figure....
"4. It has appeared in a room with the doors shut.
CONDUCT OF ANIMALS IN THE HOUSE
"We have strong grounds for believing that the apparition was seen by
two dogs.
"Twice I remember seeing our dog suddenly run up to the mat at the foot
of the stairs in the hall, wagging his tail, and moving his back in the
way dogs do when expecting to be caressed. It jumped up, fawning as it
would do if a person was standing there, but suddenly slunk away with
its tail between its legs, and retreated, trembling, under a sofa. We
were all strongly under the impression that it had seen the figure. Its
action was peculiar, and was much more striking to an onlooker than it
could possibly appear from a description.
"In conclusion, as to the feelings aroused by the presence of the
figure, it is very difficult to describe them; on the first few
occasions, I think the feeling of awe at something unknown, mixed with
a strong desire to know more about it, predominated. Later, when I was
able to analyze my feelings more closely, and the first novelty had
gone off, I was conscious of a feeling of _loss_, as if I had lost
power to the figure.
"Most of the other percipients speak of a feeling of cold wind, but I
myself have not experienced this...."
B---- HOUSE
This is a very famous case of "Haunting," which was investigated by
Sir Oliver Lodge, Mr. F. W. H. Myers, Colonel Taylor (a specialist on
Haunted Houses), Miss X., the Marquis of Bute, etc. The chief reports
of the occurrence are due to the last three named persons; and from the
Journal kept during their occupancy of the house the following extracts
are made:
"_February 4, Thursday._ I awoke suddenly, just before 3 a.m. Miss
Moore, who had been lying awake for over two hours, said: 'I want you
to stay awake and listen.' Almost immediately I was startled by a
loud clanging sound, which seemed to resound through the house. The
mental image it brought to my mind was as of a long metal bar, such
as I have seen near iron-foundries, being struck at intervals with a
wooden mallet. The noise was distinctly that of metal struck with wood;
it seemed to come diagonally across the house. It sounded very loud,
though distinct, and the idea that any inmate of the house should not
hear it seemed preposterous....
"I also had an experience this morning which may have been purely
subjective, but which should be recorded. About 10 a.m., I was writing
in the library, face to light, back to fire. Mrs. W. was in the
room, and addressed me once or twice; but I was aware of not being
responsive, as I was much occupied. I wrote on, and presently felt a
distinct, but gentle push against my chair. I thought it was the dog,
and looked down, but he was not there. I went on writing, and in a few
minutes felt a push, firm and decided, against myself which moved me on
my chair. I thought it was Mrs. W----, who, having spoken and obtained
no answer, was reminding me of her presence. I looked backward with an
exclamation--the room was empty! She came in presently, and called my
attention to the dog, who was gazing intently from the hearth-rug at
the place where I had expected (before) to see him....
"As the day began with the above, and as I had had a quiet rest, I went
to 'the copse' at dusk. The moon was bright, and the twilight lingered.
We waited about in the avenue to let it get darker, but it was still
far from dark. Then we made our way up to the glen--Miss Moore, Miss
Langton and myself.
"I saw 'Ishbel' and 'Marget' in the old spot across the burn. [Two
'spirits' who had been seen about the house, several times before].
'Ishbel' was on her knees in the attitude of weeping, 'Marget'
apparently reasoning with her in a low voice, to which 'Ishbel' replied
very occasionally. I could not hear what was said from the noise of
the burn. We waited for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. They had
appeared when I had been there for three or four. When we regained
the avenue (in silence) Miss Moore asked Miss Langton, 'What did you
see?' (She had been told nothing, except that the Colonel, who did
not know details then, had said in her presence something about 'a
couple of nuns.') She said: 'I saw nothing, but I heard a low talking.'
Questioned further, she said it seemed close behind. The glen is so
narrow that this might be quite consistent with what I heard and saw.
Miss Moore heard a murmuring voice, and is quite certain it was not
the burn. She is less suggestible than almost any one I know.... The
dog ran up while we were there, pointed, and ran straight for the two
women. He afterwards left us, and we found him barking in the glen. He
is a dog who hardly ever barks. We went up among the trees where he
was, and could find no cause....
"This morning's phenomenon is the most incomprehensible I have yet
known. I heard the banging sounds after we were in bed last night.
Early this morning, about 5.30, I was awakened by them. They continued
for nearly an hour. Then another sound began _in_ the room. It might
have been made by a very lively kitten jumping and pouncing, or even by
a very large bird; there was a fluttering noise too.[3] It was close,
exactly opposite the bed. Miss Moore woke up, and we heard the noise
going on till nearly eight o'clock. I drew up the blinds and opened the
windows wide. I sought all over the room, looking into cupboards and
under furniture. We cannot guess at any possible explanation...."
[3] This fluttering noise, as of a bird, is very often met with
in the literature of the occult, and is typical of 'haunted
houses.' In the famous case of Lord Lyttleton, for instance,
this was recorded, and was said to announce his death. He died
three days later, in bed.
A few weeks later, Miss X., wrote in her "Journal":
"The general tone of things is disquieting, and new in our experience.
Hitherto, in our first occupation, the phenomena affected one
as melancholy, depressing and perplexing, but now all, quite
independently, say the same thing--that the influence is evil and
horrible--even poor little 'Spooks' (the dog) who was never terrified
before, has been since our return here. The worn faces at breakfast are
really a dismal sight."
Soon after this the investigators left the house.
WILLINGTON MILL
This is one of the most famous Haunted Houses on record. The case has
been described in various books on ghosts, the most complete account
being that contained in the _Journal_ of the Psychical Research
Society.... Mr. Proctor lived for several years in the haunted mill,
and got quite used to the apparitions, which stalked about the place at
all hours. Visitors, however, did not like them as much as he did. The
following extracts will suffice to explain the general character of the
haunting in this case--
"When two of Mrs. Proctor's sisters were staying at the Mill on a
visit, their bed was suddenly violently shaken, the curtains hoisted up
all round to their tester and then as rapidly let down again, and this
again in rapid succession. The curtains were taken off the next night,
with the result that they both saw a female figure, of mysterious
substance and of a greyish-blue hue come out of the wall at the head
of the bed and lean over them. They both saw it distinctly. They saw
it come out of and go back again into the wall.... Mrs. Davidson's
sister-in-law had a curious experience on one occasion. One evening
she was putting one of the bedrooms right, and, looking toward the
dressing table, saw what she supposed was a white towel lying on the
ground. She went to pick it up, but imagine her surprise when she found
that it rose up, and went up behind the dressing-table over the top,
down on the floor across the room, disappeared under the door, and was
heard to descend the stairs with a heavy step! The noise which it made
in doing so was distinctly heard by Mr. Proctor and others in the house.
"On one occasion, Mr. Mann, the old mill foreman, with his wife and
daughter, and Mrs. Proctor's sister, all four saw the figure of a bald
headed old man in a flowing robe like a surplice gliding backwards and
forwards about three feet from the floor, level with the bottom of the
second story window; he then stood still in the middle of the window
and part of the body which appeared quite luminous showed through the
blind. While in that position, the framework of the window was visible,
while the body was as brilliant as a star, and diffused a radiance all
round; then it turned a bluish tinge, and gradually faded away from the
head downwards.
"The children, however, were the chief ghost-seers. On one occasion one
of the little girls came to Mrs. Davidson and said: 'There is a lady
sitting on the bed in mamma's bedroom. She has eyeholes but no eyes;
and she looked so hard at me.' On another occasion a boy of two years
old was charmed with the ghost, and laughed and kicked, crying out: 'Ah
dares somebody--pee, pee!' On one occasion the mother saw through the
bed curtain a figure cross the room to the table on which the light was
burning, take up the snuffers and snuff the candle....
"Several experiments were made with a clairvoyant by the name of
Jane, to ascertain the cause of the mystery. In the mesmeric trance
she described the house accurately; described the nature of the
disturbances which were going on within it; and stated that the chief
cause of the trouble was to be found 'in the cellar.' This was not
verified. The full story, as narrated, is certainly one of the most
curious to be found anywhere."
THE GREAT AMHERST MYSTERY
This is one of the most remarkable cases on record. It is the case
of a haunted house, in which many _physical_ manifestations of all
sorts took place, and were observed by nearly a hundred persons,
all of whom testified as to the reality of the facts. The house in
question is situated in Amherst, N. S.--hence the name. Residing in
this small house were (when the events occurred) Mr. and Mrs. Teed,
their children, Willie, aged five years, and George, aged seventeen
months. His wife's two sisters, Jennie and Esther Cox, also lived with
them--Esther being the person around whom nearly all the phenomena
centered. John Teed and William Cox also boarded at the house--brothers
of Mr. and Mrs. Teed, respectively.
The manifestations began in a very peculiar manner. The two girls,
who had just gone to bed (they slept together) were on the point of
falling asleep, when Esther suddenly jumped out of bed with a scream,
exclaiming that there was a mouse in the mattress. A careful search
failed, however, to reveal the presence of any mouse. The same thing
happened the next night; and when the girls got up to search for the
mouse, a paste-board box, which was under the bed, jumped up in the air
and fell over on its side. They decided to say nothing about it; got
into bed again, and were soon asleep.
The next night manifestations began in earnest. Esther began to swell;
her body became puffed all over, and she thought she was going to
burst. She screamed with pain. Just then, however, three terrific
reports shook the room, and the swelling suddenly subsided. She was
placed in bed; but no sooner had she been placed upon it than all the
bed-clothes flew off her, and settled in the far corner of the room.
"They could see them passing through the air by the light of the
kerosene lamp which was lighted and standing on the table, and both
screamed as only scared girls can, and then Jennie fainted."
The bed-clothes were replaced. No sooner was this done than the pillow
flew out from under her head, and landed in the center of the floor. It
was replaced, but again flew out, hitting Mr. Teed in the face. Three
deafening reports then shook the house; after which all manifestations
ceased for the night.
The next night, these manifestations were repeated; the bed-clothes
flew off, in view of all; and in the midst of this, the sound of
scratching became audible, as of a metallic object scraping plaster.
"All looked at the wall whence the sound of writing came, when, to
their great astonishment, there could be plainly read these words:
'Esther Cox, you are mine to kill.' Every person in the room could see
the writing plainly, and yet but a moment before nothing was to be seen
but the plain kalsomined wall!...
These things continued day after day, and were seen by many persons.
Articles would be thrown about the house; Dr. Carrittee, the family
physician, saw "a bucket of cold water become agitated, and, to all
appearances, boil while standing on the kitchen table." A voice
was heard, in the atmosphere of the house, talking to Esther; and
telling her all manner of horrible things. Soon after this, to the
consternation of all present, "all saw a lighted match fall from the
ceiling to the bed, having come out of the air, which would certainly
have set the bed-clothing on fire, had not Jennie put it out instantly.
During the next two minutes, eight or ten lighted matches fell on the
bed and about the room, out of the air, but were all extinguished
before anything could be set fire by them...."
This fire-raising continued for several days. The family would smell
smoke, and, on running up into the bedroom, they would find a bundle
of clothes placed in the center of the floor, blazing. Or they would
descend to the cellar; and there find a pile of shavings alight and
blazing merrily. They lived in constant danger of having the house
burned over their heads.
Soon after this, things got so bad that Esther Cox had to leave home,
and went to visit a friend by the name of White, in the hope that the
manifestations would cease, when she was removed from her own home. For
four weeks things went well; then they began again just as ever. Knocks
and raps were heard all over the house, which answered questions asked
them; and told the amount of money people had in their pockets, etc.
Articles of furniture were thrown about; voices sounded; and, worst of
all, Esther now began to _see_ the ghost; and described it to those
about her. Among other terrifying phenomena, which took place at Mr.
Whites' house, the following should be mentioned--
"... A clasp-knife belonging to little Frederic White was taken from
his hand, while he was whittling something, by the devilish ghost,
who instantly stabbed Esther in the back with it, leaving the knife
sticking in the wound, which was bleeding profusely. Frederic pulled
the bloody knife from the wound, wiped it, closed it and put it in his
pocket, which he had no sooner done than the ghost obtained possession
of it again and, quick as a flash of lightning, stuck it into the same
wound...."
Some person tried the experiment of placing three or four large iron
spikes on Esther's lap while she was seated in the dining-saloon. To
the unutterable astonishment of Mr. White, Frederic and other persons
present, the spikes were not instantly removed, as it was expected they
would be, but, instead, remained on her lap until they became too hot
to be handled with comfort, when they were thrown by the ghost to the
far end of the saloon--a distance of twenty feet. This fact was fully
corroborated.
It was at this stage of the proceedings that the spot was visited by
Walter Hubbell, an actor, who remained some time in Amherst, studying
the case, and who has written a whole book about it--"The Great Amherst
Mystery." On the night of his arrival, they all sat round a table, in
full light, to see what they could see, and knocks and raps resounded
immediately. "We could all hear even the scratching sound of invisible
human finger nails, and the dull sounds produced by the hands, as they
rubbed the table, and struck it with invisible, clenched fists, in
knocking in response to questions."
The next day, Mr. Hubbell records the following facts, among others: "I
had been seated about five minutes when, to my great astonishment, my
umbrella was thrown a distance of sixteen feet, passing over my head
in its strange flight, and almost at the same instant a large carving
knife came whizzing through the air, passing over Esther's head, who
was just then coming out of the pantry with a large dish in both hands,
and fell in front of her, near me--having come from behind her out of
the pantry. I naturally went to the door and looked in, but no person
was there.
"After dinner I lay down on the sofa in the parlor; Esther was in
the room seated near the center in a rocking chair. I did not sleep,
but lay with my eyes only partially closed so that I could see her.
While lying there a large glass paper-weight, weighing fully a pound,
came whizzing through the air from a corner of the room, where I had
previously noticed it on an ornamental shelf, a distance of some twelve
or fifteen feet from the sofa. Had it struck my head, I should surely
have been killed, so great was the force with which it was thrown....
"On Monday, June 23, they commenced again with great violence. At
breakfast, the lid of the sugar bowl was heard to fall on the floor.
Mrs. Teed, Esther and myself searched for it for fully five minutes,
and had abandoned our search as useless, when all three saw it fall
from the ceiling. I saw it, just before it fell, and it was at the
moment suspended in the air about one foot from the ceiling. No one
was within five feet of it at the time. The table knives were then
thrown upon the floor, the chairs pitched over, and after breakfast
the dining-table fell over on its side, rugs upon the floor were slid
about, and the whole room literally turned into a pandemonium, so
filled with dust that I went into the parlor. Just as I got inside the
parlor door a large flower pot, containing a plant in full bloom, was
taken from among Jennie's flowers on the stand near the window; and in
a second, a tin pail, with a handle, was brought half-filled with water
from the kitchen and placed beside the plant on the floor, both in the
center of the parlor, and put there by a ghost. Just think of such
a thing happening while the sun was shining, and only a few minutes
before I had seen this same tin pail from the dining-room hanging on a
nail in the kitchen, empty! And yet people say, and thousands believe,
that there are no haunted houses! What a great mistake they make in so
asserting; but then they never lived in a genuine one, where there was
an invisible power that had full and complete sway. By all the demons!
When I read the accounts now in my 'Journal,' from which my experience
is copied, I am almost speechless with wonder that I ever lived to
behold such sights....
"On this same day, Esther's face was slapped by the ghosts, so that the
marks of fingers could be plainly seen--just exactly as if a human
hand had slapped her face; these slaps could be plainly heard by all
present. I heard them distinctly, time and again....
"On Thursday, June 26, Jennie and Esther told me that the night before
Bob, the demon, had been in their room again. They stated he had stuck
them with pins and marked them from head to foot with crosses. I saw
some of the crosses, which were bloody marks, scratched upon their
hands, necks and arms. It was a sad sight. During the entire day, I
was busy pulling pins out of Esther; they came out of the air from all
quarters, and were stuck into all the exposed portions of her person,
even the head, and inside of her ears. Maggie, the ghost, took quite
an interest in me, and came to my room at night, while the lamp was
burning, and knocked on the headboard of my bed and on the wall near
the bed, which was _not_ next to the room occupied by the girls, but
on an outside wall facing the stable. I carried on a most interesting
conversation with her, asking a great many questions which were
answered by knocks....
"A trumpet was heard in the house all day. The sound came from within
the atmosphere--I can give no other description of its effect on our
sense of hearing.... I wish to state, most emphatically, that I could
tell the difference in the knocks made by each ghost just as well as
if they had spoken. The knocks made by Maggie were delicate and soft,
as if made by a woman's hand, while those made by Bob Nickle were loud
and strong, denoting great strength and evidently large hands. When he
knocked with those terrible sledge-hammer blows, he certainly must have
used a large rock or some other heavy object, for such loud knocks were
not produced with hard knuckles...."
In July the phenomena became so bad that the landlord came and told the
Teed family that either Esther would have to go, or they would all have
to leave the house. It was decided that Esther should go, which she
did, visiting some friends by the name of Van Amburgh. From the time
she left her home the second time, she was never afterwards troubled
with the ghosts. Some years later, she married and went to live in
another town--where she was interviewed by the present writer in 1907.
This account was sworn to by Mr. Hubbell before a notary public, and he
asserts under oath that every word of the account is true. He has also
produced the written confirmatory testimony of a score of still-living
witnesses of the phenomena in Amherst.
A very similar case occurred in Tennessee, in 1818, and is recorded in
full by M. V. Ingram, in his book, "The Bell Witch." Many other cases
of a like nature are to be found in the "History of the Supernatural."
_For ghosts of the dead
Through Infinite ages
Have wandered and lurked
In earth's atmosphere;
Watchful and eager
For victims to torture
To follow and kill,
Or make tremble with fear.
Yes, ghosts of the dead
Revengeful and evil,
Still come in hordes
From the Stygian shore;
Entering houses
To torment our maidens
Burning and wrecking
Our homes evermore._
BROOK HOUSE
The following case is given in full by Mr. W. T. Stead in his _Real
Ghost Stories_, and I extract from his narrative some of the most
striking and interesting passages. It is a truly remarkable narrative,
well worthy of careful perusal.
Mr. Ralph Hastings, of Broadmeadow, Teignmouth, wrote in October, 1891,
enclosing the following extracts from his diary, which he had kept in
the haunted house:
"I was spending some months of the summer of '73 at a favorite
watering place in the S.E. coast. One afternoon I went to visit some
old friends who lived in an old house which stood in a quadrangle,
and was approached from the church by a narrow lane. Brook House was
a commodious, red-brick structure of three stories, faced by a Court,
with its ground-floor windows unseen from the outside by reason of the
lofty wall which encircled them.
"On the day in question, as I approached the house from the Church
side, I happened to glance at the window to the right on the second
floor. There I saw, to my astonishment, the apparent figure of Miss B.,
standing partially dressed, arranging her hair and looking intently at
me. On entering the house, I was at once shown into the drawing-room,
and I found Miss B. reading. In reply to my question, she told me she
had been there an hour!
"My curiosity was now fully aroused, and I went to the house the next
day, July 4, accompanied by a lady, a mutual friend. We went up into
the room in which I had seen the figure, threw the window open--it
being very hot--looking on to the garden, and then went downstairs into
the drawing-room, where we had some music. We went up again in about
half an hour's time. The window was _shut_.... We went back into the
garden, and looked up at the window. Presently, to our horror, a figure
appeared resembling Miss B., yet most unlike her--its fearful eyes
were gazing at me without movement and totally expressionless. What,
then, caused the arresting of the heart's pulsation (as it felt) and
blood--that the moment before had burnt as it coursed madly through the
veins--to be chilled to ice? This--one was face to face with a spirit,
and withered by the contact. Those eyes--I can see them--I can feel
them--after a lapse of nearly twenty years. Miss B. had incontinently
fainted when she saw the shoulders (as she described it) of the figure.
I continued gazing spellbound; like the 'Wedding Guest' I was held by
the spirit's eye, and I could not choose but look. The dreadful hands
were lifted automatically; they rested on the window sash. It came
partly down, stayed a moment, then noiselessly closed, and I saw a
hand rise and clasp it. I gazed steadfastly throughout. What impressed
me strangely was this peculiarity, that as soon as the sash had passed
the face the latter vanished, the hands remained; the unreality of
the actual movement of the window, as it descended, also seemed to
contradict me: it suggested (for want of a better comparison) the
mechanical passage of stage scenery, and some sorts of toys that are
pulled by wires; it made no noise whatever. Now I distinctly recognized
the shape as that of Rhoda, Miss B.'s elder sister, who had been dead
some twelve years.... We looked again, and saw the backs of two hands
on the _outside_ of the window, but they did not move it.
"We then went in, coming out again almost directly, and saw the window
nearly closed; then went upstairs into the room; and again I flung the
window as wide open as it would go, and before leaving set the door
open, with a heavy chair against it; but previous to this (I omitted to
mention) as we were looking up at the window after the appearance of
the hands, we saw a horrible object come from the right (the apparition
invariably did); it resembled a large, white bundle, called by Miss B.,
who had before seen it, 'The Headless Woman'; it came in front of the
window and then began walking backwards and forwards. After a lapse
of half an hour, we went upstairs again, and found the chair by the
window, and the door closed; whereupon I wrote 'It' a letter to this
effect: 'Miss B. and Mr. H. present their compliments to the "Lady
Headless" and request her acceptance of this fruit from their garden;
they hope it will please, as she has often been seen admiring it. A
reply will oblige, but the bearer does not wait for the answer.' We put
the chair once more against the window, placing the fruit and note on
it; two or three times we went up, but nothing had changed.
"We then went and stood outside the summer house, whence a clear
view of the window could be obtained; presently there came forward
the headless figure; and distinctly bowed two or three times, then
immediately afterwards a deafening slam of the door. The apex of this
figure, which was rotund, _i.e._, headless, once or twice dilated, and
we feared seeing something, we knew not what; it then vanished, and
we saw a beautiful arm come from the curtain and wave to us. Upstairs
again, the door was shut; on entering we saw the chair overturned in
the middle of the room, the fruit scattered in all directions, and, to
our horror, the note, which I had folded crosswise, was charred at each
corner. I took it up; but lacked the courage to open, and perhaps find
a possible reply. Placing it in a plate I burnt it. The process was a
very slow one; and it distilled a dark mucus.
"The whimsical idea now possessed me to arrange the room like a
theatre, the armchair and others I placed facing the stand; on them
I laid antimacassars, and books for programmes. We then went down to
the end of the garden which commanded a view of the room, and looked:
blank space, nothing more--stay! A curious filmy vapor begins to float
in the air, which slowly cohered, evolved vague phantasms; they unite,
and gradually assume a definite shape. The headless woman fronts us
at the window, she vanishes, and an immense sheet is waved twice or
thrice from the right side of the window, something is flung out; we
walk quickly up the garden and there, under the window, lies one of the
books. What had hastened our steps was the frantic gesticulating of the
servant. She was frightened out of her senses by the peculiar sounds
proceeding from the room; but she could not describe them, saying
that they seemed to be a terrible hurrying to and fro, accompanied
by strange noises.... We took the Bible and entered the room, which
was in disorder: the flower-stand was thrown down, the two chairs
widely apart, one of the antimacassars was tightly folded up under the
recumbent towel horse, the other with the towel was airing itself on
the gigantic tree some seven feet from the window....
"The next day we went into the room, and discovered an impression in
the bed, as though some 'thing' had lain in it. On closer inspection,
we distinctly saw the coverlet gently moving, resembling the very
gentle respiration of a body beneath. We returned to the garden, having
thrown open the window. After waiting for a long time, we saw what
looked like a hand appear on the center of the window sill, then from
the curtain came the white figure.
"It disappeared and after a moment or two the hand also; but there must
have been a _something_ besides crouching under the window, for it
heaved upwards and seemed to fill the window for an instant. It then
sank, the hand vanished, and we saw no more. We waited a long time,
till I spoke of going. I had noticed as a curious thing that almost
always, when I had wearied of looking, seeing _nothing_ and about to
leave, something was sure to happen....
"This ends my personal experiences. My health became impaired, and
for upwards of two years I was invalided, but as time wore on and
the impressions waned, I gradually recovered. I often wander back in
imagination to the many mysteries that in the long ago held sway at
Brook House."
CHAPTER V
GHOST STORIES OF A MORE DRAMATIC NATURE
In the cases which are adduced in the present chapter, the standard
of evidence cannot be considered so high; many of them have been
recorded in good faith as actual experiences, but they will probably
fail to carry conviction to the same extent as those which have gone
before. Still, many of these narratives are singularly striking and
interesting; and for this reason deserve to be included in this
volume. The reader may therefore place any construction he may choose
upon these cases; as they are presented not as evidence but as
entertainment. I shall begin with some personal experiences of a Scotch
seer, who, according to his own accounts, has experienced some of the
most dramatic and remarkable manifestations conceivable.
DISEASE-PHANTOMS
Mr. Elliott O'Donnell--a man about whom it has been said that "the
gates of his soul are open on the Hell side," has had many strange
experiences with spirits, mostly evil and horrible, and has recorded
these in his books "Ghostly Phenomena," "Byways of Ghostland," etc.
From his voluminous writings on his own personal experiences, I cite a
few cases, to show the character of the phenomena:
"I have, from time to time, witnessed many manifestations which I
believe to be super-physical, both from the peculiarity of their
properties, and from the effect their presence invariably produce
on me--an effect I cannot associate with anything physical. One of
the first occult phenomena I remember, appeared to me when I was
about five years of age. I was then living in a town in the West of
England, and had, according to the usual custom, been put to bed at
six o'clock. I had spent a very happy day, playing with my favorite
toys--soldiers--and, not being in the least degree tired, was amusing
myself with planning a fresh campaign for the following morning, when
I noticed suddenly that the bedroom door (which I distinctly remember
my nurse carefully latching) was slowly opening. Thinking this was very
curious, but without the slightest suspicion of 'ghosts,' I sat up in
bed and watched.
"The door continued to open, and at last I caught sight of something
so extraordinary that my guilty conscience at once associated it with
the Devil--with regard to whom I distinctly recollected to have spoken
that afternoon in a sceptical, and I frankly admit, very disrespectful
manner. But far from feeling the proximity of that heat which all those
who profess authority on Satanic matters ascribe to Satan, I felt
decidedly cold--so cold, indeed, that my hands grew numb and my teeth
chattered. At first I only saw two light glittering eyes that fixed
themselves upon me with an expression of diabolical glee, but I was
soon able to perceive that they were set in a huge, flat face, covered
with fulsome-looking yellow spots about the size of a threepenny bit.
I do not remember noticing any of the other features, save the mouth,
which was large and gaping. The body to which the head was attached
was quite nude, and covered all over with spots similar to those on
the face. I cannot recall any arms, though I have vivid recollections
of two thick and, to all appearances, jointless legs, by the use of
which it left the doorway, and gliding noiselessly over the carpet,
approached the empty bed, placed in a parallel position to my own.
There it halted, and thrusting its mis-shapen head forward, it fixed
its malevolent eyes on me with a penetrating stare. On this occasion,
I was far less frightened than on any of my subsequent experiences with
the occult. Why, I cannot say, as the manifestation was certainly one
of the most hideous I have ever seen. My curiosity, however, was far
greater than my fear, and I kept asking myself what the thing was, and
why it was there?
"It did not seem to be composed of ordinary flesh and blood, but rather
of some luminous matter that resembles the light emanating from a
glow-worm.
"After remaining in the same attitude for what seemed to me an
incalculably long time, it gradually receded, and assuming all of
a sudden a horizontal attitude, passed head first through the wall
opposite to where I sat. Next day, I made a sketch of the apparition,
and showed it to my relatives, who, of course, told me I had been
dreaming. About two weeks later I was ill in bed with a painful, if
not actually dangerous, disease. I was giving an account of this
manifestation at a lecture I delivered two or three years ago in
B., and when I had finished speaking, I was called aside by one of
the audience who very shyly told me that he too had had a similar
experience. Prior to being attacked by diphtheria, he had seen a
queer-looking apparition which had approached his bedside and leaned
over him. He assured me that he had been fully awake at the time, and
had applied tests to prove that the phantom was entirely objective.
"A number of other cases, too, have been reported to me, in which
various species of phantasms have been seen before various illnesses.
Hence I believe that certain spirits are symbolical of certain
diseases, if not the actual creators of the bacilli from which
these diseases arise. To these phantasms I have given the name of
_Morbas_...."
THE TALE OF THE MUMMY
"During one of my sojourns in Paris," says Mr. Elliott O'Donnell, in
his "Byways of Ghost Land," "I met a Frenchman who, he informed me, had
just returned from the East. I asked him if he had brought back any
curios such as vases, funeral urns, weapons or amulets. 'Yes, lots,'
he replied, 'two cases full. But no mummies! Mon Dieu! No mummies. You
ask me why? Ah! Thereby hangs a tale. If you will have patience, I will
tell it you.'
"The following is the gist of his narrative:
"'Some seasons ago I traveled up the Nile as far as Assiut, and when
there, managed to pay a visit to the grand ruins of Thebes. Among the
various treasures I brought away with me was a mummy. I found it lying
in an enormous lidless sarcophagus, close to a mutilated statue of
Anubis. On my return to Assiut, I had the mummy placed in my tent, and
thought no more of it till something awoke me with startling suddenness
in the night. Then, obeying a peculiar impulse, I turned over on my
side and looked in the direction of my treasure.
"'The nights in the Soudan at this time of year are brilliant, one can
even see to read, and every object in the desert is almost as clearly
visible as by day. But I was quite startled by the whiteness of the
glow which rested on the mummy, the face of which was immediately
opposite mine. The remains--those of Met-Om-Karema, lady of the College
of the god Amen-ra--were swathed in bandages, some of which had worn
away in parts or become loose; and the figure, plainly discernible, was
that of a shapely woman with elegant bust, well-formed limbs, rounded
arms and small hands. The thumbs were slender, and the fingers, each of
which was separately bandaged, long and tapering. The neck was full,
the cranium rather long, the nose aquiline, the chin firm. Imitation
eyes, brows, and lips were painted on the wrappings, and the effect
thus produced and in the phosphorescent glare of the moonbeams, was
very weird. I was quite alone in the tent, the only European who
accompanied me to Assiut, having stayed in the town by preference, and
my servants being encamped at one hundred or so yards from me on the
ground.
"'Sound travels far in the desert, but the silence now was absolute,
and, though I listened attentively, I could not detect the slightest
noise--man, beast and insect were abnormally still. There was something
in the air, too, which struck me as unusual; an odd, clammy coldness
that reminded me at once of the catacombs in Paris. I had hardly,
however, conceived the resemblance, when a sob--low, gentle, but very
distinct--sent a thrill of horror through me. It was ridiculous,
absurd. It could not be, and I fought against the idea as to whence
the sound had proceeded, as something too utterly fantastic, too
utterly impossible. I tried to occupy my mind with other thoughts--the
frivolities of Cairo, the casinos of Nice; but all to no purpose;
and soon, on my eager, throbbing ear there again fell that sound,
that low and gentle sob. My hair stood on end; this time there was no
doubt, no possible manner of doubt--the mummy lived! I looked at it
aghast. I strained my vision to detect any movement in its limbs,
but none was perceptible. Yet the noise had come from it, it had
breathed--breathed--and even as I hissed the word unconsciously through
my clenched lips, the bosom of the mummy rose and fell.
"'A frightful terror seized me. I tried to shriek to my servants; I
could not ejaculate a syllable. I tried to close my eye-lids, but
they were held open as in a vice. Again there came a sob that was
immediately succeeded by a sigh; and a tremor ran through the figure
from head to foot. One of its hands then began to move, the fingers
clutched the air convulsively, then grew rigid, then curled slowly
into the palms, then suddenly straightened. The bandages concealing
them from view then fell off, and to my agonized sight were disclosed
objects that struck me as strangely familiar. There is something about
fingers, a marked individuality, I never forget. No two persons' hands
are alike. And in these fingers, in their excessive whiteness, round
knuckles, and blue veins, I read a likeness whose prototype, struggle
how I would, I could not recall. Gradually the hand moved upwards, and,
reaching the throat, the fingers set to work at once to remove the
wrappings. My terror was now sublime. I dare not imagine, I dare not
for one instant think, what I should see. And there was no getting away
from it; I could not stir an inch, and the ghastly revelation would
take place within a yard of my face!
"'One by one the bandages came off. A glimmer of skin, pale as marble;
the beginning of the nose, the whole nose; the upper lip, exquisitely,
delicately cut; the teeth, white and even on the whole, but here and
there a shining gold filling; the under lip, soft and gentle; a mouth
I knew, but--God, where? In my dreams, in the wild fantasies that had
oft-times visited by pillow at night--in delirium, in reality, where?
Mon Dieu! WHERE?
"'The uncasing continued. The chin next, a chin that was purely
feminine, purely classical; then the upper part of the head--the hair
long, black, luxuriant--the forehead low and white--the brows black,
firmly pencilled; and last of all, the eyes!--and as they met my
frenzied gaze, smiled, smiled right down into the depths of my living
soul, I recognized them--they were the eyes of my mother, my mother
who had died in my boyhood! Seized with a madness that knew no bounds,
I sprang to my feet. The figure rose and confronted me. I flung open
my arms to embrace her, the woman of all women in the world I loved
best, the only woman I had ever loved. Shrinking from my touch, she
cowered against the side of the tent. I fell on my knees before her and
kissed--what? Not the feet of my mother, but those of the long-buried
dead. Sick with repulsion and fear I looked up, and there bending over
and peering into my eyes was the face, the fleshless, mouldering face
of the foul and barely recognizable corpse! With a shriek of horror
I rolled backwards, and, springing to my feet, prepared to fly. I
glanced at the mummy. It was lying on the ground, stiff and still,
every bandage in its place; whilst standing over it, a look of fiendish
glee in its light, doglike eyes, was the figure of Anubis, lurid and
menacing.
"'The voices of my servants, assuring me they were coming, broke the
silence, and in an instant the apparition vanished.
"'I had had enough of the tent, however, at least for that night, and,
seeking refuge in the town, I whiled away the hours till morning with
a fragrant cigar and a novel. Directly I had breakfasted, I took the
mummy back to Thebes, and left it there. No thank you, Mr. O'Donnell, I
collect many kinds of curios, but--no more mummies!'"
FACE SLAPPED BY A GHOST
The following remarkable event occurred to a friend of mine--an
elderly, married lady, whom I have known for some time. She is now
making her home in Brooklyn, but at the time of her gruesome experience
was residing in England. It is some years since this occurred, but the
incident, she assured me, lives just as vividly in her mind as though
it all happened yesterday. This is her story, just as she told it to me:
"I was staying with some friends in the country. They had an old,
rambling house, with long, draughty halls and corridors all over it. As
the house was already full of guests, I had to sleep in a large room,
at the end of the long passage, on the ground floor. The room in itself
was comfortable enough--large and warm. Yet there was an atmosphere
about that apartment which I did not quite like; in fact, the whole
house made me feel 'creepy,' for no reason that I can give.
"Bed-time came all too soon; and I took my candle and was shown my
room. My hostess saw that I had everything I needed; and then, saying
good-night, went upstairs to bed.
"I had half undressed when I saw the door of my room gently and quietly
opened, as though a stealthy hand were softly pressing it open. I
gazed transfixed, until, when wide open, I could see that no one was,
in reality, on the other side of the door. At that I drew a breath
of relief. 'A draught,' I thought, 'coming down the hallway. It is
nothing.' And I chided myself on my fears; shut the door, and proceeded
to undress.
"I had not gone far, however, when to my amazement the door opened
again; just as quietly and stealthily as before. Again I closed the
door, and proceeded with my undressing. I had by this time finished,
and had donned my night-gown preparatory to getting into bed.
"At that moment I was horrified to see my door open for the _third_
time, just as it did before--slowly, slowly, until it rested on its
hinges, wide open to the hall. I now determined to investigate; so,
taking my candle in my hand, I stepped out into the hall and proceeded
down towards the front door.
"I had not taken more than three or four steps, however, when the
candle in my hands was extinguished--as though a breath of wind, coming
from nowhere, had blown it out. I did not much relish this, as the
matches were in my room. But I determined to keep on, in the dark,
and see what the cause of this could be. So I kept on and on, down
the dark hall--my left hand holding the extinguished candle; my right
extended so that I could feel the solid masonry all the way down the
corridor.
"I had proceeded, perhaps, half way, when a strange thing occurred. I
suddenly felt myself slapped on the left cheek by something cold and
moist and clammy. I put my hand up to my face, and felt it was wet. For
an instant I hesitated; then I proceeded, down the hall, until I came
to the front door. That I found closed and locked. Having thus explored
the whole length of the hall and found nothing, I turned back to regain
my room. Still holding the candle in my left hand, and still feeling
the wall with my outstretched right hand, I crept cautiously along, not
knowing what to expect.
"Again, I had proceeded about half way down the hall when I felt the
same cold, quick slap in the face (this time on the right cheek) and
again I found it was wet.
"Thoroughly frightened now, I fled to my room as fast as my legs could
carry me. Once within, I closed and secured the door by placing a chair
against it. Next, finding my box of matches, I relighted my candle.
Then I surveyed myself in the mirror, to see what could be upon my
face.
"Imagine my horror when, on looking in the glass, I discovered two
long streaks of blood, one upon either cheek! I was so terror-struck
that I gazed at myself for a few moments unable to move or speak. Then
I screamed, and after that I have no very clear recollection of what
happened. I have a hazy recollection of anxious faces bending over me;
of a low hum of voices; then oblivion.
"It took me many weeks to recover from the shock of that night."
ALONE WITH A GHOST IN A CHURCH
The following case is sent me by a correspondent:
I once knew a young man by the name of Charles D. Bradlaugh, who took a
delight in ridiculing ghost stories and, whenever possible, in proving
them to be due to fraud, trickery or hallucination. He stated he was
"afraid of nothing." I said to him one day in conversation: "If you are
as fearless as you say, would you be willing to spend a night alone,
locked up in a Church with a corpse freshly placed in its coffin?"
He replied that he would do it any time; so the test was shortly
arranged. One of the parishioners had just died, and had been placed
in the crypt of the church, with the lid of the coffin removed. The
lights were all extinguished; we locked the door after us, and went
away, leaving Bradlaugh and the spirits to fight it out between them.
What occurred during the night must be told in Bradlaugh's own words,
as nearly as I can recall them:
"When I heard the key turn in the door, that night, I confess that a
strange feeling came over me for the first time in my life. I wanted
to get out; but of course I knew it was useless; and in the next place
my pride forbade my leaving. Shaking off the superstitious fear that
had settled upon me, I turned away; and proceeded to explore, as best I
could, the whole of the church.
"A bright moonlight fell in through the windows, casting queer shadows
in various directions; and across the long rows of pews and the altar
at the far end of the church. I walked about, looking at everything
curiously, as it had been long since I found myself inside a church.
Then I proceeded to the crypt, and, walking boldly up to the coffin, I
gazed long and earnestly at the corpse lying within it, as though to
familiarize myself with it. I went on the principle that 'familiarity
breeds contempt.' When I had done this, I went back to the nave of the
church, and, finding a comfortable place, I lay down, and was soon in
a state bordering on sleep. I should have been asleep, probably, very
soon; but, just as I was dropping off, I heard a faint sound coming
from the direction of the crypt. It was like a deep sigh, and this
was followed by other sounds which I find it hard to describe. All I
know is that, in the quiet and stillness of that awful place, those
sounds, slight as they were, were truly appalling, and chilled the very
blood in my veins. Their very indistinctness added to their terror. I
could not conceive what could make such uncanny noises. I sat up, and
strained my eyes in the darkness, trying to penetrate the gloom. Then
I heard the first faint footsteps coming up the stairs from the crypt!
At first, these were faint, but they became louder and louder; until
finally I could hear them plainly. Undoubtedly they were foot-falls, as
though a human being were mounting the steps from the crypt where the
corpse had been laid!
"I rose from my seat, my hair standing on end, while queer, cold
shivers ran up and down my back. I advanced one or two paces toward the
door, hardly knowing what to expect. Then, as I looked, I saw step into
the bright moonlight, the corpse that a few moments before I had seen
lying in the coffin downstairs!
"Frantic with fear, I rushed at the corpse, still shrouded, as it was,
in the white wrappings which, torn and dishevelled, still enveloped the
body. I raised one hand as though to strike the ghost, and thrust the
hateful thing from me; when I felt a stunning blow on the point of my
jaw, and a moment later I had lost sensibility. When I awoke, you were
all round me. You know the rest."
To make a long story short, it turned out that the supposed "corpse"
was not really dead at all, but in a sort of trance; and had been
buried prematurely. He had revived in the night; and was advancing into
the church when he encountered Bradlaugh in the doorway. Thinking him a
robber or an assassin, he had struck first; and, being a powerful man
and a good boxer, he had knocked out Bradlaugh by a blow on the jaw.
When we arrived in the morning, we found Bradlaugh senseless, and the
"corpse," now stripped of his grave clothes, bending over him, dashing
cold water in his face!
A HAUNTED HOUSE IN FRANCE
The following case, said to be authentic, is quoted here because of
the incident of the "shouts and laughter" which were heard, and which
serve to throw an interesting sidelight on the case which follows it.
The Rev. F. G. Lee, in his book, _Sights and Shadows_, gives the
following account, sent to him, of a haunted house in France:
"In the spring of the year 1891, great excitement was occasioned by
a disembodied spirit in a haunted house in LePort, at Nice. This is
situated in a terrace close to the quarries, where, after the reports
concerning it, as many as two thousand persons were often gathered
round it. The spirits haunting it--never visible, however--would
beat the inmates so unmercifully that the blows would leave bruises.
Hundreds of persons saw the result, and testified to the undoubted
facts. The local police, on being appealed to, and having heard the
evidence of numerous eye-witnesses, and of those persons who were
inconvenienced, formed a body of organized inquirers, who, shrewd
enough in mundane matters, utterly failed to discover anything or
anybody.
"On one occasion, thirteen men sat up in three rooms which had been
well lighted, and some of them played cards for several hours to while
away the time. During the whole of this occurrence, the strangest
noises were heard in various parts of the building. It seemed, at
one time, as if a whole regiment of soldiers were tramping up the
chief staircase. Pictures swung to and fro upon the walls, without any
visible motive effect.[4] Then heavy blows were heard on the walls, and
it appeared that the closed doors and the shutters were being violently
struck and thumped, as if with a large hammer wrapped in cloth.
[4] This is a common feature of haunted houses.--H.C.
"On two occasions, a room on the ground floor was found to be in the
densest darkness, though outside the house the sun was shining. On
another occasion, just before midnight, when certain persons were
specially present to note any supernatural occurrences, all the lamps
in the house were suddenly put out; while shouts and laughter were
heard in every part of the place, more particularly from the empty
rooms. At the same time, heavy blows were experienced by those present,
who were very severely bruised, and a large bottle of ink was thrown by
invisible hands from the top of the staircase.
"Every attempt was made to discover the source of these extraordinary
disorders, but without avail. They were reported to have ceased for
several months, but to have commenced again at a later period. A local
communication says that they still 'occur at intervals.'"
A HAUNTED HOUSE IN GEORGIA
The following account is taken from the report of the San Francisco
_Examiner_, and is certainly one of the most striking cases of the
character on record. It is not put forward as strictly "evidential,"
but its interesting nature certainly warrants its insertion in this
volume.
"Soon after the Walsinghams took up their abode in their new home,
they began to be disturbed by strange sounds and odd phenomena. These
disturbances generally took the form of noises in the house after the
family had retired and the lights had been extinguished--continual
banging of the doors, things overturned, the doorbell rang, and the
annoying of the house dog, a large and intelligent mastiff.
"One day Don Cæsar, the mastiff, was found in the hallway barking
furiously and bristling with rage, while his eyes seemed directed to
the wall just before him. At last he made a spring forward with a
hoarse yelp of ungovernable fury, only to fall back as if flung down by
some powerful and cruel hand. Upon examination it was found that his
neck had been broken.
"The house cat, on the contrary, seemed rather to enjoy the favor of
the ghost, and would often enter a door as if escorting some visitor,
whose hand was stroking her back. She would also climb about a chair,
rubbing herself and purring as if well pleased at the presence of some
one in the seat. She and Don Cæsar invariably manifested this eccentric
conduct at the same time, as though the mysterious being were visible
to both of them.
"The annoying visitant finally took to arousing the family at all hours
of the night by making such a row as to render any rest impossible.
"This noise, which consisted of shouts, groans, hideous laughter, and a
peculiar, most distressing wail, would sometimes proceed, apparently,
from under the house, sometimes from the ceiling and at other times in
the very room in which the family was seated. One night Miss Amelia
Walsingham, the young lady daughter, was engaged at her toilet, when
she felt a hand softly laid on her shoulder. Thinking it her mother or
sister, she glanced at the glass before her, only to be thunderstruck
at seeing the mirror reflect no form but her own, though she could
plainly see a man's broad hand lying on her arm.
"She brought the family to her by her screams, but when they reached
her all sign of the mysterious hand had gone. Mr. Walsingham himself
saw footsteps form beside his own while walking through the garden
after a light rain.
"The marks were those of a man's naked feet, and fell beside his own,
as if the person walked at his side.
"Matters grew so serious that the Walsinghams became frightened, and
talked of leaving the house, when an event took place which confirmed
them in this determination. The family was seated at the supper table
with several guests who were spending the evening when a loud groan was
heard in the room overhead.
"This was, however, nothing unusual, and very little notice was taken
of it until one of the visitors pointed out a stain of what looked like
blood on the white table cloth, and it was seen that some liquid was
slowly dripping on the table from the ceiling overhead. This liquid was
so much like freshly-shed blood that it horrified those who watched its
slow dropping. Mr. Walsingham, with several of his guests, ran hastily
upstairs and into the room directly over the one in which the blood was
dripping.
"A carpet covered the floor, and nothing appeared to explain the source
of the ghastly rain; but, anxious to satisfy themselves thoroughly,
the carpet was immediately ripped up, and the boarding found to be
perfectly dry, and even covered with a thin layer of dust, and all the
while the floor was being examined the persons below could swear the
blood never ceased to drop. A stain the size of a dinner-plate was
formed before the drops ceased to fall. This stain was examined the
next day under the microscope, and was pronounced by competent chemists
to be human blood.
"The Walsinghams left the house next day, and since then the place
has been apparently given over to spooks and evil spirits, which make
the night hideous with the noise of revel, shouts and furious yells.
Hundreds from all over this county and adjacent ones have visited the
place, but few have had the courage to pass the night in the haunted
house. One daring spirit, however, Horace Gunn, of Savannah, accepted
a wager that he could not spend twenty-four hours in it, and did so,
though he declares that there is not enough money in the country to
make him pass another night there. He was found the morning after
by his friends with whom he made the wager, in a swoon. He has never
recovered from the shock of his horrible experience, and is still
confined to his bed suffering from nervous prostration.
"His story is that shortly after nightfall he endeavored to kindle
a fire in one of the rooms, and to light the lamp with which he had
provided himself, but to his surprise and consternation, found it
impossible to do either. An icy breath, which seemed to proceed from
some invisible person at his side, extinguished each match as he
lighted it. At this peculiarly terrifying turn of affairs Mr. Gunn
would have left the house and forfeited the amount of his wager, a
considerable one, but he was restrained by the fear of ridicule. He
steadied himself in the dark with what calmness he could, and waited
developments.
"For some time nothing occurred, and the young man was half-dozing,
when, after an hour or two, he was brought to his feet by a sudden yell
of pain or rage that seemed to come from under the house. This appeared
to be the signal for an outbreak of hideous noises all over the house.
The sound of running feet could be heard scurrying up and down the
stairs, hastening from one room to another, as if one person fled from
the pursuit of a second. This kept up for nearly an hour, but at last
ceased altogether, and for some time Mr. Gunn sat in darkness and
quiet, and had about concluded that the performance was over for the
night. At last, however, his attention was attracted by a white spot
that gradually appeared on the opposite wall.
"The spot continued to brighten, until it seemed a disc of white
fire, when the horrified spectator saw that the light emanated from
and surrounded a human head, which, without a body, or any visible
means of support, was moving slowly along the wall, about the height
of a man from the floor. This ghastly head appeared to be that of
an aged person, though whether male or female it was difficult to
determine. The hair was long and gray, and matted together with
dark clots of blood, which also issued from a deep jagged wound in
one temple. The cheeks were fallen in and the whole face indicated
suffering and unspeakable misery. The eyes were wide open, and gleamed
with an unearthly fire, while the glassy eyes seemed to follow the
terror-stricken Gunn, who was too thoroughly paralyzed by what he saw
to move or cry out. Finally, the head disappeared and the room was once
more left in darkness, but the young man could hear what seemed to be
half a dozen persons moving about him, while the whole house shook as
if rocked by some violent earthquake.
"The groaning and the wailing that broke forth from every direction was
something terrific, and an unearthly rattle and banging as of china
or tin pans being flung to the ground floor from the upper story added
to the deafening noise. Gunn at last roused himself sufficiently to
try and leave the haunted house. Feeling his way along the wall, in
order to avoid the beings, whatever they were, that filled the room,
the young man had nearly succeeded in reaching the door when he found
himself seized by the ankle and was violently thrown to the floor. He
was grasped by icy hands, which sought to grip him about the throat. He
struggled with his unseen foe, but was soon overpowered and choked into
insensibility. When found by his friends, his throat was black with the
marks of long, thin fingers, armed with cruel, curved nails.
"The only explanation which, can be found for these mysterious
manifestations is that about three months before, a number of bones
were discovered on the Walsingham place, which some declared even then
to be those of a human being. Mr. Walsingham pronounced them, however,
to be an animal's, and they were hastily thrown into an adjacent
limekiln. It is supposed to be the outraged spirit of a person to whom
they belonged in life which is now creating such consternation."
SHAKEN BY A GHOST
The following narrative is vouched for by Mrs. H. S. Iredell, of
Tunbridge Wells, England, a relative of the Rev. Dr. Lee, who gives the
case in his _Sights and Shadows_:
"The haunted house in question is near Wandsworth common. The late
occupants of it were a man, his wife and their child. They had to
leave it, for they could get no rest in it at night for the fearful
noises which went on incessantly, like sounds as of a sledge-hammer
wrapped in flannel struck against the walls. The sister-in-law of the
late occupants, who told me of it, had spent some days at the house,
so I heard all the story first-hand. One night she likewise felt as if
someone had taken her by the shoulders and she was being roughly shaken
from side to side. Her husband, who was with her, saw her at the time
she was being shaken by an invisible power, stretched out his hand
to take hold of her; but he felt right up his arm to his shoulder a
_shock_, as it were of electricity, which made him instantly draw back
and cry out. Nothing was ever seen, but in the special sleeping-room
which seemed to be haunted, the clothes used to be pulled off the bed
at night and thrown on the floor, and then they used to raise or rear
themselves up again on the bed....
"Since the above was written, it is reported, that no less than five
families have respectively occupied the house as tenants, who one and
all have left it as soon as possible. It is now said to be permanently
untenanted."
* * * * *
This case is given because of the incident of the "electric shock"
which the percipient received, when attempting to interfere with
the "spirit"; and serves as an interesting modern and apparently
well-authenticated instance of what occurred in Lytton's story, which
follows.
THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN
Bulwer Lytton's story, "The House and the Brain," is, perhaps, the most
remarkable ghost story of this character on record, and is considered,
by many, the best ever written. The phenomena occur in a house which
is reputed to be haunted; no one will live in it. At last one brave
soul determines to pass the night within its walls; he and his servant
take up their abode in it, and, after various startling adventures of
a minor character, the "grand climax" of the night is reached. As the
author sat reading by the fire, the following occurred, which is told
in his own words:
"I now became aware that something interposed between the page and the
light--the page was over-shadowed; I looked up, and I saw what I shall
find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.
"It was a Darkness shaping itself forth from the air in very undefined
outline. I cannot say it was a human form, and yet it had more
resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than to anything else.
As it stood, wholly apart and distinct from the air and light around
it, its dimensions seemed gigantic, the summit nearly touching the
ceiling. While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold seized me. An iceberg
could not more have chilled me; nor could the cold of an iceberg have
been more purely physical. I feel convinced that it was not the cold
caused by fear. As I continued to gaze, I thought--but this I cannot
say with precision--that I distinguished two eyes looking on me from
the height. One moment I fancied that I distinguished them clearly; the
next they seemed gone; but still two rays of pale blue light frequently
shot through the darkness, as from the height on which, I half
believed, half doubted, that I had encountered the eyes.
"I strove to speak--my voice utterly failed me; I could only think to
myself, Is this fear? It is _not_ fear! I strove to rise; in vain; I
felt weighed down by an irresistible force. Indeed, my impression was
that of an immense and overwhelming Power opposed to my volition; that
sense of utter inadequacy to cope with a force beyond man's, which one
may feel _physically_ in a storm at sea, in a conflagration, or when
confronting some terrible wild beast--or rather, perhaps, the shark of
the ocean, I felt _morally_. Opposed to my will was another will, as
far superior to its strength as storm, fire and shark are superior in
material force to the force of man.
"And now--as this impression grew on me--now came, at last,
horror--horror of a degree that no words can convey. Still I retained
pride, if not courage; and in my own mind I said: 'This is horror, but
it is not fear; unless I fear I cannot be harmed; my reason rejects
this thing; it is an illusion--I do not fear.' With a violent effort I
succeeded at last in stretching out my hand towards the weapon on the
table; as I did so, on the arm and shoulder I received a strange shock,
and my arm fell to my side powerless. And now, to add to my horror,
the light began slowly to wane from the candles--they were not, as it
were, extinguished, but their flame seemed very gradually withdrawn--it
was the same with the fire; the light was extinguished from the fuel;
in a few minutes the room was in utter darkness. The dread that came
over me, to be thus in the dark with that Thing, whose power was so
intensely felt, brought on a reaction of nerve. In fact, terror had
reached that climax, that either my senses must have deserted me, or I
must have burst through the spell. I _did_ burst through it. I found
voice, though the voice was a shriek. I remember that I broke forth
with words like these--'I do not fear, my soul does not fear'; and at
the same time I found the strength to rise. Still in that profound
gloom I rushed to one of the windows--tore aside the curtain--flung
open the shutters; my first thought was--LIGHT. And when I saw the
moon high, clear and calm, I felt a joy that almost compensated me for
my previous terror. There was the moon; there also was the light from
the gas lamps in the deserted, slumberous street. I turned to look
back into the room; the moon penetrated its shadow very palely and
partially--but still there was light. The dark Thing, whatever it might
be, was gone--except that I could yet see a dim shadow, which seemed
the shadow of that shade against the opposite wall.
"My eye now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was
without cloth or cover--an old mahogany round table) there rose a
hand, visible as far as the wrist. It was a hand, seemingly, as much
of flesh and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person--lean,
wrinkled, small too--a woman's hand. That hand very softly closed on
the two letters that lay on the table; hand and letters both vanished.
Then there came the same three loud, measured knocks I had heard on the
bed-head before this extraordinary drama commenced.
"As these sounds slowly ceased, I felt the whole room vibrate sensibly;
and at the far end there rose, from the floor, sparks or globules, like
globules of light, many colored--green, yellow, fire-red, azure. Up
and down, to and fro, hither, thither, as tiny Will o' the Wisps, the
sparks moved, slow and swift, each at its own caprice. A chair (as in
the drawing-room below) was now advanced from the wall without apparent
agency, and placed at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly, as
forth from the air, there grew a shape, a woman's shape. It was
distinct as a shape of life--ghastly as the shape of death. The face
was that of youth, with a strange, mournful beauty; the throat and
shoulders were bare; the rest of the form in a loose robe of cloudy
white. It began sleeking its long, yellow hair, which fell over its
shoulders; its eyes were not turned towards me, but to the floor; it
seemed listening, watching, waiting. The shadow of the shade in the
background grew darker; and again I thought I saw the eyes gleaming out
from the summit of the shadow--eyes fixed upon that shape.
"As if from the door, though it did not open, there grew out another
shape, equally distinct, equally ghastly--a man's shape--a young man's.
It was in the dress of the last century, or rather the likeness to such
dress (for both the male and the female, though defined, were evidently
unsubstantial, impalpable, simulacra, phantasms), and there was
something incongruous, grotesque, yet fearful in the contrast between
the elaborate finery, the courtly precision of that old-fashioned garb,
with its ruffles and lace and buckles, and the corpse-like aspect and
ghost-like stillness of the flitting wearer. Just as the male shape
approached the female, the dark shadow started from the wall, and
all three for a moment were wrapped in darkness. When the pale light
returned, the two phantasms were as if in the grasp of the shadow, that
towered between them, and there was a blood stain on the breast of the
female; and the phantom male was leaning on its phantom sword, and
blood seemed trickling fast from the ruffles, from the lace; and the
darkness of the intermediate Shadow swallowed them up--they were gone.
And again the bubbles of light shot, and sailed, and undulated, growing
thicker and thicker and more wildly confused in their movements.
"The closet door to the right of the fireplace now opened, and from
the aperture there came the form of an aged woman. In her hand she
held letters--the very letters over which I had seen the hand close;
and behind her I heard a footstep. She turned round as if to listen,
and then she opened her letters and seemed to read; and over her
shoulder I saw a livid face, the face of a man long drowned--bloated,
bleached--seaweed tangled in its dripping hair, and at her feet lay a
form as of a corpse, and beside the corpse there towered a child, a
miserable, squalid child, with famine in its cheeks and fear in its
eyes. And as I looked in the old woman's face, the wrinkles and lines
vanished; and it became the face of youth--hard-eyed, stony, but still
youth; and the Shadow darted forth and darkened over these phantoms as
it had darkened over the last.
"Nothing now was left but the Shadow, and on that my eyes were intently
fixed, till again eyes grew out of the Shadow--malignant, serpent
eyes. And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their
disordered, irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight.
And now from these globules themselves, as from the shell of an egg,
monstrous things burst out; the air grew filled with them; larvæ so
bloodless and so hideous that I can in no way describe them except
to remind the reader of the swarming life which the solar microscope
brings before the eyes in a drop of water--things transparent, supple,
agile, chasing each other, devouring each other--forms like nought
ever beheld by the naked eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so
their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there
was no sport; they came round me and round; thicker and faster and
swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was
outstretched in involuntary command against all evil things. Sometimes
I felt myself touched, but not by them; invisible hands touched me.
Once I felt the clutch of cold, soft fingers at my throat, I was still
equally conscious that if I gave way to fear I should be in bodily
peril; and I concentrated all my faculties in the single focus of
resisting, stubborn will. And I turned my sight from the Shadow--above
all, from those strange serpent eyes--eyes that had now become
distinctly visible. For there, though in nought else round me, I was
aware that there was a WILL, and a will of intense, creative, working
evil, which might crush down my own.
"The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the air
of some near conflagration. The larvæ grew lurid as things that live on
fire. Again the room vibrated; again I heard the three measured knocks;
and again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the dark
shadow--as if out of that darkness all had come, into that darkness all
had returned.
"As the gloom receded, the Shadow was wholly gone. Slowly, as it had
been withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the table,
again into the fuel in the grate....
"The room came once more calmly, healthfully into sight.
"Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night. Nor, indeed, had I
long to wait before the dawn broke...."
APPENDIX A
HISTORICAL GHOSTS
Royalty and well-known personages have seen ghosts in all ages of the
world's history; certainly they are not exempt from the common run of
humanity so far as ghostly visitations are concerned! Mr. Stead has
compiled a number of notable cases of this character, of which the
following are probably the most noteworthy:
ROYAL
_Henry IV._ of France told D'Aubigne that, in the presence of
himself, the Archbishop of Lyons, and three ladies of the Court, the
Queen (Margaret of Valois) saw the apparition of a certain Cardinal
afterwards found to have died at the moment.
_Abel the Fratricide_, King of Denmark, still haunts the woods of
Poole, near the city of Sleswig.
_Valdemar IV._ haunts Gurre Wood, near Elsinore.
_Charles XI._, of Sweden, accompanied by his chamberlain and state
physician, witnessed the trial of the assassin of Gartavus III., which
occurred nearly a century later.
_James IV._, of Scotland, was warned by an apparition against his
intended expedition into England. He, however, proceeded and fell at
Flodden Field.
_Charles I._, of England, was also warned by an apparition, but paying
no heed, was disastrously defeated at Naseby.
_Queen Elizabeth_ is said to have been warned of her death by the
apparition of her own double.
EMPERORS
_Trajan_ and _Caracalla_ both saw apparitions, which they recorded.
_Theodosius_ and _Julian the Apostate_ both beheld apparitions, at
important crises in their lives.
FAMOUS MEN
_Sir Robert Peel_ and his brother both saw Lord Byron in London when he
was in reality lying dangerously ill of a fever in Patras. During the
same fever, he also appeared to others.
_Julius Caesar_, _Xerxes_, _Drusus_, _Pausanius_, _Dio_ (General of
Syracuse), _Admiral Coligni_ all saw apparitions, which made a deep
impression on them in every case.
_Napoleon_, at St. Helena, saw and conversed with the apparition of
Josephine, who warned him of his approaching death. _Blucher_, on
the day of his death, was also told of it by an apparition. _General
Garfield_ saw and conversed with his father, latterly deceased.
_Lincoln_ had a certain premonitory dream which occurred three times
in relation to important battles, and the fourth on the eve of his
assassination.
_Dante_, son of the poet, was visited in a dream by his father, who
conversed with him and told him (correctly) where to find the missing
thirteen cantos of the "Commedia."
_Goethe_ saw his own double riding by his side under conditions which
really occurred years later.
_Tasso_ saw and conversed with beings invisible to those about him.
_Cellini_ was dissuaded from suicide by the apparition of a young man
who frequently visited and encouraged him.
_Mozart_ was visited by a mysterious person who ordered him to compose
a _requiem_, and came frequently to inquire after its progress, but
disappeared on its completion, which occurred just in time for its
performance at his own funeral.
_Ben Johnson_ was visited by the apparition of his eldest son with the
mark of a bloody cross upon his forehead at the moment of his death by
the plague.
_Thackery_ wrote: "It is all very well for you who have probably never
seen spirit manifestations to talk as you do, but had you seen what I
have witnessed you would hold a different opinion."
_Hugh Miller_, _Maria Edgeworth_, _Captain Marryat_, _Madame de Stael_,
_Sir Humphrey Davy_, _William Harvey_, _Francis Bacon_, _Martin
Luther_, _George Fox_, _Cardinal Newman_, _Bishop Wilberforce_, and
many others have seen apparitions, or held converse with the unseen
world in one form or another, as recorded by themselves.
Among the famous historical hauntings, we must not forget to mention
the famous _Cock Lane Ghost_ which occurred about 1760. According to a
brief paragraph printed in the _London Ledger_, 1762, we read that:
"For some time a great knocking having been heard in the night, at
the officiating parish clerk's of St. Sepulchre's, in Cock Lane near
Smithfield, to the great terror of the family, and all means used to
discover the meaning of it having failed, four gentlemen sat up there
last Friday night, among whom was a clergyman standing withinside the
door, who asked various questions. On his asking whether anyone had
been murdered, no answer was made; but on his asking whether anyone had
been poisoned, it knocked one and thirty times. The report current in
the neighborhood is that a woman was some time ago poisoned, and buried
in St. John's Clerkenwell, by her brother-in-law."
These knockings and phenomena occurred for a considerable time, until
the whole community became interested in the manifestations. While
various theories were advanced at the time--and since--to explain this
ghost, no definite conclusion has ever been arrived at.
The _Drummer of Tedworth_ is a still older and equally famous ghost,
who flourished about a hundred years before the Cock Lane Ghost, and
was investigated (and the results carefully recorded) by Sir Joseph
Glanvil, F.R.S., who wrote a book about the case: "_Sadducismus
Triumphatus_," which was also devoted to the general phenomena of
witchcraft. Here, also, we find records of unaccountable "knockings"
and similar phenomena, which lasted for a considerable time, and which
have never yet been explained.
The ghost which invaded _John Wesley's_ house stayed with them for
several years, and manifested his presence in a variety of elaborate
and ingenious ways. Those who are interested in this ghost and his
doings should read Wesley's _Journal_; also the various discussions,
_pro_ and _con._, which have appeared in the _Proceedings_ of the
Society for Psychical Research, from time to time. It is a most curious
and suggestive record.
The _Devils of Loudon_ might also be cited as an interesting case
of psychic phenomena; and here trance, automatic speech, etc., were
observed--as well as the usual physical phenomena. This is perhaps
one of the earliest cases which was closely observed, and in which
skeptical criticism was applied. This case will be found recorded in
Mr. H. Addington Bruce's "_Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters_."
APPENDIX B
THE PHANTOM ARMIES SEEN IN FRANCE
History abounds in cases showing the apparent intrusion of spiritual
help in time of trouble, and in the annals of military history, these
accounts are not lacking. On several occasions, the Crusaders thought
that they saw angelic hosts fighting for them--phantom horsemen
charging the enemy, when their own utter destruction seemed imminent.
In the wars between the English and the Scotch, several such cases were
cited, and the Napoleonic wars also furnished examples. But the most
striking evidence of this character--because the newest--and supported,
apparently, by a good deal of first-hand and sincere testimony, is
that afforded by the Phantom Armies seen in France during the retreat
of the British army from Mons--the field of Agincourt. Cut off by
overwhelming numbers, and all but annihilated, the British army fought
desperately, but the 80,000 were opposed by 300,000 Germans, backed by
a terrific fire of artillery, and were indeed in a critical position.
They were only saved, as we know, by the heroism of a small force of
men--a rearguard--who were practically wiped out in consequence. At the
most critical moment came what appeared to be angelic assistance. The
tide of battle seemed to be stemmed by supernatural means. In a letter
written by a soldier who actually witnessed these startling events,
quoted by the Hon. Mrs. St. John Mildmay (_North American Review_,
August, 1915), the following graphic account is given. Our soldier
writes--
"The men joked at the shells and found many funny names for them, and
had bets about them, and greeted them with music-hall songs, as they
screamed in this terrific cannonade.... The climax seemed to have been
reached, but 'a seven-times heated hell' of the enemy's onslaught fell
upon them, rending brother from brother. At that very moment, they saw
from their trenches a tremendous host moving against their lines. Five
hundred of the thousand (who had been detailed to fight the rear-guard
action) remained, and as far as they could see the German infantry was
pressing on against them, column by column, a grey world of men--10,000
of them, as it appeared afterwards. There was no hope at all. Some of
them shook hands. One man improvised a new version of the battle song
Tipperary, ending 'and we shan't get there!' And all went on firing
steadily.... The enemy dropped line after line, while the few machine
guns did their best. Everyone knew it was of no use. The dead grey
bodies lay in companies and battalions, but others came on and on,
swarming and advancing from beyond and beyond.
"'World without end, Amen,' said one of the British soldiers, with some
irreverence, as he took aim and fired. Then he remembered a vegetarian
restaurant in London, where he had once or twice eaten queer dishes of
cutlets made of lentils and nuts that pretended to be steaks. On all
the plates in this restaurant a figure of St. George was printed in
blue with the motto, _Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georgius_ (May St. George
be a present help to England!) The soldier happened to know 'Latin
and other useless things,' so now, as he fired at the grey advancing
mass, 300 yards away, he uttered the pious vegetarian motto. He went
on firing to the end, till at last Bill on his right had to clout him
cheerfully on the head to make him stop, pointing out as he did so that
the King's ammunition cost money and was not lightly to be wasted....
For, as the Latin scholar uttered his invocation, he felt something
between a shudder and an electric shock pass through his body. The roar
of the battle died down in his ears to a gentle murmur, and instead of
it, he says, he heard a great voice louder than a thunder peal, crying
'Array! Array!' His heart grew hot as a burning coal, then it grew cold
as ice within him, for it seemed to him a tumult of voices answered to
the summons. He heard or seemed to hear thousands shouting:
"'_St. George! St. George!_
"'_Ha! Messire, Ha! Sweet Saint, grant us good deliverance!_
"'_St. George for Merrie England!_
"'_Harow! Harow! Monseigneur St. George, succour us, Ha! St.
George! A low bow, and a strong bow, Knight of Heaven, aid us!_'
"As the soldier heard these voices, he saw before him, beyond the
trench, a long line of shapes with a shining about them. They were like
men who drew the bow, and with another shout their cloud of arrows flew
singing through the air toward the German host. The other men in the
trenches were firing all the while. They had no hope, but they aimed
just as if they had been shooting at Bisley.
"Suddenly one of these lifted up his voice in plain English. 'Gawd help
us,' he bellowed to the man next him, 'but we're bloomin' marvels! Look
at those grey gentlemen! Look at them! They're not going down in dozens
or hundreds--its _thousands_ it is! Look, look! There's a regiment gone
while I'm talking to ye!'
"'Shut it,' the other soldier bellowed, taking aim. 'What are ye
talkin' about?' But he gulped with astonishment even as he spoke, for
indeed the grey men were falling by the thousands. The English could
hear the guttural scream of their revolvers as they shot, and line
after line crashed to the earth. All the while the Latin-bred soldier
heard the cry 'Harow, Harow! Monseigneur! Dear Saint! Quick to our aid!
St. George help us!'
"The singing arrows darkened the air, the hordes melted before them.
'More machine guns,' Bill yelled to Tom. 'Don't hear them,' Tom yelled
back, 'but thank God, anyway, that they have got it in the neck!'
"In fact, there were ten thousand dead German soldiers left before
that salient of the English army, and consequently--_no Sedan_. In
Germany the General Staff decided that the English must have employed
turpenite shells, as no wounds were discernible on the bodies of the
dead soldiers. But the man who knew what nuts tasted like when they
called themselves steak, knew also that St. George had brought his
Agincourt Bowmen to help the English."
Such accounts have been confirmed by others. Thus, Miss Phyllis
Campbell, writing in "_The Occult Review_" (October, 1915), says:
"I tremble, now that it is safely past, to look back on the terrible
week that brought the Allies to Vitry-le-Francois. We had not had
our clothes off for the whole of that week, because no sooner had we
reached home, too weary to undress, or to eat, and fallen on our beds,
than the 'chug-chug' of the commandant's car would sound into the
silence of the deserted street, and the horn would imperatively summon
us back to duty--because, in addition to our duties as _ambulancier
auxiliare_, we were interpreters to the post, now at this moment
diminished to half-a-dozen.
"Returning at 4.30 in the morning, we stood on the end of the
platform, watching the train crawl through the blue-green mist of
the forest, into the clearing, and draw up with the first wounded
from Vitry-le-Francois. It was packed with dead and dying and badly
wounded. For a time we forgot our weariness in a race against
time--removing the dead and dying, and attending to those in need. I
was bandaging a man's shattered arm with the _majeur_ instructing me,
while he stitched a horrible gap in his head, when Madame de A----,
the heroic president of the post, came and replaced me. 'There is an
English in the fifth wagon,' she said. 'He wants something--I think a
holy picture!'
"The idea of an English soldier wanting a holy picture struck me, even
in that atmosphere of blood and misery, as something to smile at--but I
hurried away. 'The English' was a Lancashire Fusilier. He was propped
in a corner, his left arm tied-up in a peasant woman's handkerchief,
and his head newly bandaged. He should have been in a state of collapse
from loss of blood, for his tattered uniform was soaked and caked in
blood, and his face paper-white under the dirt of conflict. He looked
at me with bright, courageous eyes and asked for a picture or a medal
(he didn't care which) of St. George. I asked him if he was a Catholic.
'No,' he was Wesleyan Methodist, ... and he wanted a picture or a medal
of St. George, _because he had seen him on a white horse_, leading the
British at Vitry-le-Francois, when the Allies turned.
"There was an F.R.A. man, wounded in the leg, sitting beside him on
the floor; he saw my look of amazement, and hastened in: 'It's true,
sister,' he said. 'We all saw it. First there was a sort of yellow-mist
like, sort of risin' before the Germans as they came on the top of the
hill--come on like a solid wall, they did--springing out of the earth
just solid--no end to 'em! I just give up. No use fighting the whole
German race, thinks I; it's all up with _us_. The next minute comes
this funny cloud of light, and when it clears off, there's a tall man
with yellow hair in golden armour, on a white horse, holding his sword
up, and his mouth open as if he was saying: "Come on, boys! I'll put
the kybosh on the devils!" Sort of "This is my picnic" expression.
Then, before you could say "knife," the Germans had turned, and we were
after them, fighting like ninety....'
"'Where was this?' I asked. But neither of them could tell. They had
marched, fighting a rearguard action, from Mons, till St. George had
appeared through the haze of light, and turned the enemy. They both
_knew_ it was St. George. Hadn't they seen him with a sword on every
'quid' they'd ever seen? The Frenchies had seen him too--ask them; but
they said it was St. Michæl...."
Much additional testimony of a like nature might be given--and has
been collected by students of psychical research. If the spiritual
world ever intervenes in matters mundane, it assuredly did so on this
occasion. And it could hardly have chosen a more opportune time. Could
the aspiring thoughts of the dead and dying, and those still living
and fighting for their country, have drawn "St. George" to earth, to
aid in again redeeming his country from a foreign foe? Could a simple
"hallucination" have been so widespread and so prevalent? Or might
there not have been some spiritual energy behind the visions thus
seen--stimulating them, and inspiring and encouraging the stricken
soldiers? We cannot say. We only know what the soldiers themselves
say; and we also know the undoubted effects upon the enemy. For on
both occasions were the Germans repulsed with terrible slaughter.
Perhaps the vision of St. George led our soldiers into closer touch and
_rapport_ with the consciousness of some high intelligence--or the veil
was rent, separating the two worlds--as so often appears to be the case
in apparitions and visions of this character.
APPENDIX C
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. M. R. James.
Wandering Ghosts. F. Marion Crawford.
John Silence. A. Blackwood.
Modern Ghosts. DeMaupassant, (and others).
Twenty-five Ghost Stories. W. Bob Holland.
A Book of Ghosts. Baring Gould.
The Shape of Fear. Peattie.
Book of Dreams and Ghosts. Andrew Lang.
Cock Lane and Common Sense. A. Lang.
Real Ghost Stories. W. T. Stead.
More Ghost Stories. W. T. Stead.
The Great Amherst Mystery. Walter Hubbell.
The Bell Witch. M. V. Ingram.
The Alleged Haunting of B---- House. Miss X.
Haunted Houses and Haunted Men. Hon. John Harris.
Ghostly Phenomena. Elliott O'Donnell.
Byways of Ghost Land. Elliott O'Donnell.
Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters. H. A. Bruce.
Posthumous Humanity: a Study of Phantoms. D'Assier.
Apparitions and Thought-Transference. Frank Podmore.
The New View of Ghosts. F. Podmore.
_Proceedings_ and _Journals_ of the S. P. R.
Borderland (Magazine). _Ed. by_ W. T. Stead.
Haunted Houses of Great Britain. Ingraham.
The Night Side of Nature. Catherine Crowe.
The House and the Brain. Bulwer Lytton.
Nightmare Tales. H. P. Blavatsky.
Apparitions: a Narrative of Facts. B. W. Saville.
Startling Ghost Stories. Anon.
Sights and Shadows. F. G. Lee.
Dracula. Bram Stoker.
The Phantom of the Opera. Gaston Leroux.
[NOTE.--The above list does not pretend to be in any way exhaustive nor
are the books quoted in any way equal in evidential value. They are
merely types or examples of Ghost Stories, from various points of view;
which, if the reader is interested, he may read with both pleasure and
profit.]
Transcriber's note:
Small capitals were changed to all capitals.
The following 3 missing section headers were added to the table of
contents: The Ghosts of Animals p. 53, Proofs of Immateriality p. 168,
and Conduct of Animals in the House p. 169; but minor differences
between the section headers in the table of contents and in the text
were not corrected.
Errors in punctuation were corrected.
Several badly printed words were guessed from the context and filled
in.
Otherwise the original was preserved, including unusual and
inconsistent spelling and hyphenation and unmatched double
quotation marks.
The following corrections were made, on page
7 "Par's" changed to "Paris" (in London, Paris, Rome, Venice)
11 "occuping" changed to "occupying" (space-occupying entities)
14 "wierd" changed to "weird" (in the still, weird hours of the
night)
63 "polteregists" changed to "poltergeists" (technically known as
"poltergeists,")
79 "Boundry" changed to "Boundary" (Footfalls on the Boundary of
Another World)
106 "occurence" changed to "occurrence" (mention the occurrence of
the night)
110 "mutally" changed to "mutually" (We were mutually sorry to part)
131 "trysing" changed to "trysting" (distance to the trysting place)
146 "exterminalization" changed to "externalization" (what I saw and
felt was an externalization of impressions)
182 "lynig" changed to "lying" (While lying there a large glass
paper-weight)
183 "gneuine" changed to "genuine" (they never lived in a genuine
one)
186 extra blank line removed within poem (To follow and kill,/Or
make tremble with fear.)
191 "possesed" changed to "possessed" (The whimsical idea now
possessed me to arrange the room)
194 "etxent" changed to "extent" (conviction to the same extent as
those)
196 "slink" changed to "slunk" (but suddenly slunk away with its
tail between its legs)
196 "has" changed to "had" (the impression that it had seen)
197 "fright-than" changed to "frightened than" (far less frightened
than on any of my subsequent experiences)
198 "pantasms" changed to "phantasms" (To these phantasms I have
given the name)
208 "familiary" changed to "familiarity" (familiarity breeds
contempt)
231 "assasin" changed to "assassin" (the trial of the assassin of
Gartavus III.)
238 "batallions" changed to "battalions" (companies and battalions)
240 "gutteral" changed to "guttural" (could hear the guttural scream
of their revolvers)
241 "Vitry-le-Francoise" changed to "Vitry-le-Francois" (draw up with
the first wounded from Vitry-le-Francois).
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "True Ghost Stories" ***
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