Occultism and Common Sense Part 5

"At Wiesbaden, Professor Ebenan, whose old sister kept his house, stated that he had a friend residing forty or fifty miles off--likewise a professor--who was very poor and had a large family. On hearing that his wife was dying, Mr E---- went to see them, and brought back their eldest boy, for whom a little bed was put up in Mr E----'s room.

"One morning, about ten days after, Mr E---- called and asked me: 'Do you believe that at the moment of death you may appear to one whom you love?' I replied: 'Yes, I do.' 'Well,' he said, 'we shall see. I have noted the day and the hour, for last night after I went to bed the child said sweetly (in German): "Yes, dear mamma, I see you." To which I replied: "No, dear boy, it is I; I am come to bed." "No," he said, "it is dear mamma, she is standing there smiling at me," pointing to the side of the bed.' On his next visit Mr Ebenan told us that he had received a letter informing him that at that time, and on that evening, the wife had breathed her last."

In some cases a vague shadowy form is seen which gradually acquires definiteness. Here is an interesting example contributed to "Proceedings," vol. x., by a Mr T. A.:--

"9th May 1892.

"I saw a darkish vapour leave my father's head when he died, about twelve years ago, and it formed into a figure full-sized, and for seven consecutive nights (I) saw it in my room, and saw it go each night into the next room, in which he died. It became more distinct each night and brighter each night, till it was quite brilliant, even dazzling, by the seventh night. It lasted, say, one and a half minutes. It was quite dark when the phantom used to appear. I was quite awake, going to bed; [age]

thirty two."

In other cases what is first seen is a glow of light--the apparition subsequently appearing in it.

Mr R. W. Raper, of Trinity College, Oxford, made the following statement to the Society for Psychical Research:--

"'Just before Christmas 1894 I went over to Liverpool with one of my brothers and my sister. It was a very fine clear day and there was a great crowd of people shopping in the streets. We were walking down Lord-street, one of the princ.i.p.al streets, when, pa.s.sing me, I saw an old uncle of mine whom I knew very little, and had not seen for a very long time, though he lived near me. I saw three distinct shapes hobbling past (he was lame), one after another, in a line. It didn't seem to strike me at the moment as being in the least curious, not even there being three shapes in a line. I said to my sister: "I have just seen Uncle E----, and I am sure he is dead." I said this, as it were, mechanically, and not feeling at all impressed. Of course my brother and sister laughed. We thought nothing more about it while in Liverpool. The first thing my mother said to us when getting home was: "I have some news"; and then she told us that this uncle had died early that morning. I don't know the particular hour. I saw the three shapes at about twelve in the morning. I felt perfectly fit and well, and was not thinking of my uncle in the least, nor did I know he was ill. Both my brother and my sister heard me say that I had seen him and believed he was dead, and they were equally astonished at hearing of his death on our return home. My uncle and I knew each other very little. In fact, he hardly knew me by sight, although he knew me well when I was a small child.'

"The corroboration from the percipient's mother and sister is quite ample; the day of the agent's death coincided with the apparition, but the hour is not certainly known."

Another well-known case is that of Prince Victor Duleep Singh, who writes:

"On Sat.u.r.day, October 21st, 1893, I was in Berlin with Lord Carnarvon. We went to a theatre together and returned before midnight. I went to bed, leaving, as I always do, a bright light in the room (electric light). As I lay in bed I found myself looking at an oleograph which hung on the wall opposite my bed. I saw distinctly the face of my father, the Maharajah Duleep Singh, looking at me, as it were, out of this picture; not like a portrait of him, but his real head. The head about filled the picture frame. I continued looking, and still saw my father looking at me with an intent expression. Though not in the least alarmed, I was so puzzled that I got out of bed to see what the picture really was. It was an oleograph commonplace picture of a girl holding a rose and leaning out of a balcony, an arch forming the background. The girl's face was quite small, whereas my father's head was the size of life and filled the frame."

The Prince's father had been in ill-health for some time, but nothing alarming was to be expected. On the day following the dream he mentioned it to Lord Carnarvon, and on the evening of that day Lord Carnarvon handed him a telegram announcing the elder Prince's death. He had had an apoplectic seizure on the previous evening and never recovered. It is interesting to note that he had often said that he would try to appear to his son at death if they happened to be apart. The account is confirmed by Lord Carnarvon.

It sometimes happens that the point of hallucination is not quite reached. The following instance, communicated to the Society for Psychical Research, is straightforward enough:

"'20 Rankeillor Street, Edinburgh,

"'December 27th, 1883.

"'In January 1871 I was living in the West Indies. On the 7th of that month I got up with a strong feeling that there was something happening at my old home in Scotland. At seven A.M. I mentioned to my sister-in-law my strange dread, and said even at that hour what I dreaded was taking place.

"'By the next mail I got word that at eleven A.M. on the 7th of January my sister died. The island I lived in was at St Kitts, and the death took place in Edinburgh. Please note the hours and allow for the difference in time, and you will notice at least a remarkable coincidence. I may add I never knew of her illness.

"'A. C----N.'

"In answer to inquiries, Mr C----n adds: 'I never at any other time had a feeling in any way resembling the particular time I wrote about. At the time I wrote about I was in perfect health, and in every way in comfortable circ.u.mstances.'"

There is nothing unreasonable in the a.s.sumption that telepathy is the agency primarily concerned in these manifestations. The idea having been received, a hallucination is built up, so to speak, by the percipient. A truly hallucinable person can suggest to himself his own hallucinations with no external aid, but a non-hallucinable personage cannot induce these hallucinations at all. Dr Hugh Wingfield stated to the Society for Psychical Research that the case of one of his patients proved that hallucinations could be produced by self-suggestion. "He could, by a simple effort of the mind, himself believe almost any delusion--_e.g._ that he was riding on horseback, that he was a dog, or anything else, or that he saw snakes--if left to himself the delusion vanished slowly.

Anyone else could remove it at once by a counter-suggestion. He made,"

he adds, "these experiments without my consent, as I consider them unsafe."

Hallucination is at times accompanied by curious organic effects. One of the commonest of these is a feeling of cold--generally described as a "chill" or "cold shudder." The following example is taken from the Census of Hallucinations of the Society for Psychical Research:--

FROM MISS K. M.

(_The account was written in 1889._)

"[About twenty years ago] I was about ten years old, and was staying with friends in Kensington. Between the hours of eight and nine P.M., we were all sitting in the drawing-room with the door open, [it] being a very warm evening. Suddenly I experienced a cold shudder, and on looking through the door opposite which I was sitting, I saw the figure of a little old lady dressed in a long brown cloak with a large brown hat, carrying a basket, glide down the stairs and disappear in the room next the drawing-room. The impression was that of someone I had never seen. I was talking on ordinary subjects, neither ill, in grief, or anxiety. There were several other people in the room, but no one noticed anything but myself. I have never had any experience of this kind before or since."

Occasionally, but very rarely, pain is described as resulting from a hallucination. Other effects include fainting fits and tactile impressions. Noise would appear in some cases to produce visual hallucinations, by creating in the hearer a strong expectation of seeing something corresponding to it, or that may account for it. From "Phantasms of the Living" we glean the following:--

"Between sleeping and waking this morning, I perceived a dog running about in a field (an ideal white and tan sporting dog), and the next moment I heard a dog barking outside my window.

Keeping my closed eyes on the vision, I found that _it came and went with the_ barking of the dog outside; getting fainter, however, each time."

A weak state of health on the part of the percipient would seem to be conducive to hallucinatory visions. Here is a case in point contributed to the "Society for Psychical Research Proceedings," vol. x., by a Professor G----:

"Saw an old woman with red cloak, nursing a child in her arms.

She sat on a boulder. Place: a gra.s.sy moor or upland, near Shotts, in Lanarks.h.i.+re. Date: over twenty years ago. Early autumn, in bright sunny weather. Made several attempts to reach her, but she always vanished before I could get up to the stone. Place far from any dwelling, and no spot where anyone could be concealed.

"[I was] walking; had been slightly troubled with insomnia which afterwards became worse. Age about thirty.

"No one [was with me]. I heard a vague report that a woman with red cloak was sometimes seen on the moor. Can't now remember whether I had heard of that report before I saw the figure--but think I had not.

"Saw many years ago (age about twenty-one), a dog sitting beside me in my room: saw this only once: was troubled slightly with insomnia at the time which afterwards became worse."

The percipient's own view, the collector tells us, is that the experience on the moor was entirely due to "nerves," as both then and previously when he saw the dog he had been much overworked, and in each case a severe illness followed.

Not always does a visual hallucination take the form of a living human form. Occasionally the object seen or the sound heard is non-human in character. In insanity and in diseases such cases are frequently met with, the hallucination being often of a grotesque or horrible sort.

Thus we have a case in which a young child beheld a vision of dwarfish gnomes dancing on the wall. Among the phantasms of inanimate objects in the collection of the late E. Gurney were a star, a firework bursting into stars, a firefly, a crown, landscape vignettes, a statue, the end of a draped coffin coming in through the door, and a bright oval surrounding the words "Wednesday, October 15, Death." Geometrical patterns, sometimes taking very complicated forms, comprise another known type of hallucination.

As to a theory for hallucinations, the most acceptable one is that they have their origin in the brain, and that the senses are made to share in the deception. There is little doubt that William Blake's hallucinations were voluntary. Gurney refers to a friend, a painter, who was able to project a vision of his sitter out into s.p.a.ce and paint from it. We have already seen that a hypnotic agent can cause his subject not merely to see things but to feel them, even to the extent of crying out with pain when an imaginary lighted match is applied to his finger.

CHAPTER VI

PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD

Thus far I have devoted myself to an investigation of phenomena for which the theory of telepathy is not inapplicable. It is, however, when we come to discuss hallucinations from which the idea of a living agent is apparently excluded that I feel myself entering on even more delicate and mysterious territory. Having dealt with phantasms of persons at the point of death, I now propose to deal with phantasms of persons already dead. Where, indeed, the death has been very recent, the telepathic theory still serves, for the reception conveyed by the dying agent might conceivably remain dormant in the sub-consciousness of the percipient, and only be aroused in a dream or during a propitious waking moment.

This would apply to the case of a lady who saw the body of a well-known London physician, about ten hours after death, lying in a bare unfurnished room, which turned out to be a cottage hospital abroad. Mr Myers, in his "Human Personality," has collected a large number of examples of apparitions of departed spirits, upon which he lays the utmost stress, because they, more than any other kind of evidence, tend to support his great theory of the survival of personality. If, he reasons, we can gain a number of well-authenticated cases of hallucinations projected telepathically from an agent before death, an equal amount of evidence of hallucinations projected by an agent after death would prove the continuance of life beyond the grave! And some of the cases which the Society of Psychical Research, both in this country and America, have collected are certainly of an impressive character.

Unhappily, most of the best and most convincing cases are too long to be given here; they cannot even profitably be summarised.

In one instance Mr F. G. of Boston, whose high character and good position are vouched for by Professor Royce and Dr Hodgson, states that nine years after the death of a favourite sister an apparition appeared before him:

"The hour was high noon, and the sun was s.h.i.+ning cheerfully into my room. While busily smoking my cigar and writing out my orders, I suddenly became conscious that someone 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 so 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."

But that is not the most extraordinary part of the story. The visitation so impressed the percipient that he took the next train home and related to his parents what had occurred. He particularly mentioned a bright red line or scratch on the right-hand side of his sister's face, which he had distinctly seen:

"... When I mentioned this, my mother rose trembling to her feet, and nearly fainted away, and as soon as she 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 the scratch, which she had accidentally made while doing some little act of kindness after my sister's death.... In proof, neither my father nor any of our family had detected it, and positively were unaware of the incident, yet _I saw the scratch as bright as if just made_. So strangely impressed was my mother, that even after she had retired to rest she got up and dressed, came to me, and told me _she knew_ that I had seen my sister. A few weeks later my mother died."

Now, is it not a little singular that, although both Dr Hodgson and Mr Myers record this incident, the theory of telepathy between a living agent and a living percipient does not occur to them? Is it not conceivable that the mother, on whose mind the incident of the scratch on the features of the corpse had admittedly preyed, should have unwittingly communicated her secret to her son? In other words, the mother projected a phantasm of her dead daughter to the mind of her son.

In the "Proceedings of the Society" there is a case which, according to Mr Stead, "appears to suggest that the deceased are continuing to take an interest in mundane affairs." The story is communicated by Miss Dodson. On Sunday, 5th June 1887, close upon midnight, Miss Dodson was roused by hearing her name called three times. She answered twice, thinking it was her uncle. The third time she recognised the voice of her mother, who had been dead sixteen years. "I said," continued Miss Dodson, "'Mamma!'"