Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death Part 24

Having thus referred to a number of cases where the apparition shows varying degrees of knowledge or memory, I pa.s.s on to the somewhat commoner type, where the apparition lacks the power or the impulse to communicate any message much more definite than that all-important one--of his own continued life and love. These cases, nevertheless, might be subdivided on many lines. Each apparition, even though it be momentary, is a phenomenon complex in more ways than our minds can follow. We must look for some broad line of demarcation, which may apply to a great many different incidents, while continuing to some extent the series which we have already been descending--from knowledge and purpose on the deceased person's part down to vagueness and apparent automatism.

Such a division--gradual, indeed, but for that very reason the more instructive--exists between _personal_ and _local_ apparitions; between manifestations plainly intended to impress the minds of certain definite survivors and manifestations in accustomed haunts, some of which, indeed, may be destined to impress survivors, but which degenerate and disintegrate into sights and sounds too meaningless to prove either purpose or intelligence.

Let us look, then, for these characteristics, not expecting, of course, that our series will be logically simple; for it must often happen that the personal and local impulses will be indistinguishable, as when the desired percipient is inhabiting the familiar home. But we may begin with some cases where the apparition has shown itself in some scene altogether strange to the deceased person.

We have had, of course, some cases of this type already. Such was the case of the apparition with the _red scratch_ (Appendix VII. B); such too was the apparition in the Countess Kapnist's carriage (Appendix VII.

E). Such cases, indeed, occur most frequently--and this fact is itself significant--among the higher and more developed forms of manifestation.

Among the briefer, less-developed apparitions with which we have now to deal, invasions by the phantasm of quite unknown territory are relatively few. I will begin by referring to a curious case, where the impression given is that of a spiritual presence which seeks and finds the percipient, but is itself too confused for coherent communication (Mrs. Lightfoot's case, _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 453 [429 B]). It will be seen that this narrative is thoroughly in accordance with previous indications of a state of posthumous _bewilderment_ supervening before the spirit has adjusted its perceptions to the new environment.

In cases like Mrs. Lightfoot's, where the percipient's surroundings are unknown to the deceased person, and especially in cases where the intimation of a death reaches the percipient when _at sea_, there is plainly nothing except the percipient's own personality to guide the spirit in his search. We have several narratives of this type. In one of these--Archdeacon Farler's, already referred to (p. 227), the apparition appears _twice_, the second appearance at least being subsequent to the death. It is plain that if in such a case the _second_ apparition conveys no fresh intelligence, we cannot prove that it is more than a subjective recrudescence of the _first_. Yet a.n.a.logy is in favour of its veridical character, since we have cases where successive manifestations _do_ bring fresh knowledge, and seem to show a continued effort to communicate.[150]

Then, again, there are _auditory_ cases where the phantasmal speech has occurred in places not known to the deceased person. (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 90, and vol. v. p. 455.)

One specially impressive characteristic of apparitions (as has been already remarked) is their occasional _collectivity_--the fact that more percipients than one sometimes see or hear the phantasmal figure or voice simultaneously. When one is considering the gradual decline in definiteness and apparent purpose from one group of apparitions to another, it is natural to ask whether this characteristic--in my view so important--is found to accompany especially the higher, more intelligent manifestations.

I cannot find that this is so. On the contrary, it is, I think, in cases of mere _haunting_ that we oftenest find that the figure is seen by several persons at once, or else (a cognate phenomenon) by several persons successively. I know not how to explain this apparent tendency.

Could we admit the underlying a.s.sumptions, it would suit the view that the "haunting" spirits are "earthbound," and thus somehow nearer to matter than spirits more exalted. Yet instances of collectivity are scattered through all cla.s.ses of apparitions; and the irregular appearance of a characteristic which seems to us so fundamental affords another lesson how great may be the variety of inward mechanism in cases which to us might seem constructed on much the same type.

I pa.s.s on to a group of cases which are both personal and local; although the personal element in most of them--the desire to manifest to the friend--may seem more important than the local element--the impulse to revisit some accustomed haunt.

In the case which I shall now cite the deceased person's image is seen simultaneously by several members of his own household, in his own house. Note the a.n.a.logy to a collective crystal vision.[151]

The account is taken from _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 213. It is given by Mr. Charles A. W. Lett, of the Military and Royal Naval Club, Albemarle Street, W.

_December 3rd, 1885._

On the 5th April 1873 my wife's father, Captain Towns, died at his residence, Cranbrook, Rose Bay, near Sidney, N. S. Wales. About six weeks after his death my wife had occasion, one evening about nine o'clock, to go to one of the bedrooms in the house. She was accompanied by a young lady, Miss Berthon, and as they entered the room--the gas was burning all the time--they were amazed to see, reflected as it were on the polished surface of the wardrobe, the image of Captain Towns. It was barely half figure, the head, shoulders, and part of the arms only showing--in fact, it was like an ordinary medallion portrait, but life-size. The face appeared wan and pale, as it did before his death, and he wore a kind of grey flannel jacket, in which he had been accustomed to sleep.

Surprised and half alarmed at what they saw, their first idea was that a portrait had been hung in the room, and that what they saw was its reflection; but there was no picture of the kind.

Whilst they were looking and wondering, my wife's sister, Miss Towns, came into the room, and before either of the others had time to speak she exclaimed, "Good gracious! Do you see papa?" One of the housemaids happened to be pa.s.sing downstairs at the moment, and she was called in, and asked if she saw anything, and her reply was, "Oh, miss! the master." Graham--Captain Towns' old body servant--was then sent for, and he also immediately exclaimed, "Oh, Lord save us! Mrs. Lett, it's the Captain!" The butler was called, and then Mrs. Crane, my wife's nurse, and they both said what they saw. Finally, Mrs. Towns was sent for, and, seeing the apparition, she advanced towards it with her arm extended as if to touch it, and as she pa.s.sed her hand over the panel of the wardrobe the figure gradually faded away, and never again appeared, though the room was regularly occupied for a long time after.

These are the simple facts of the case, and they admit of no doubt; no kind of intimation was given to any of the witnesses; the same question was put to each one as they came into the room, and the reply was given without hesitation by each. It was by the merest accident that I did not see the apparition. I was in the house at the time, but did not hear when I was called.

C. A. W. LETT.

We, the undersigned, having read the above statement, certify that it is strictly accurate, as we both were witnesses of the apparition.

SARA LETT.

SIBBIE SMYTH (_nee_ TOWNS).

Gurney writes:--

Mrs. Lett a.s.sures me that neither she nor her sister ever experienced a hallucination of the senses on any other occasion.

She is positive that the recognition of the appearance on the part of each of the later witnesses was _independent_, and not due to any suggestion from the persons already in the room.

There is another collective case which is noticeable from the fact that the departed spirit appears to influence two persons at a distance from each other in a concordant way, so that one of them becomes conscious of the appearance to the other.[152] Compare with this the incident given at the end of Appendix VII. G, when Miss Campbell has a vision of her friend seeing an apparition at a time when this is actually occurring.[153]

The case given in Appendix VII. F--which comes from excellent informants--is one of those which correspond most nearly to what one would _desire_ in a posthumous message. I may refer also to General Campbell's case (in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 476) in which a long continued series of unaccountable noises and an apparition twice seen by a child in the house suggested to the narrator the agency of his dead wife. The case, which depends for its evidential force on a great ma.s.s of detail, is too long for me to quote; but it is worth study, as is any case where there seems evidence of persistent effort to manifest, meeting with one knows not what difficulty. It may be that in such a story there is nothing but strange coincidence, or it may be that from records of partially successful effort, renewed often and in ambiguous ways, we shall hereafter learn something of the nature of that curtain of obstruction which now seems so arbitrary in its sudden lifting, its sudden fall.

I will conclude this group by referring the reader to three cases closely similar, all well attested, and all of them capable of explanation either on local or personal grounds. In the first (_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 619 [744 A]) an apparition is seen by two persons in a house in Edinburgh, a few hours before the death of a lady who had lived there, and whose body was to be brought back to it. In the second (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 57 [744 B]) the dead librarian haunts his library, but in the library are members of his old staff. In the third (_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 212 [-- 744]), the dead wife loiters round her husband's tomb, but near it pa.s.ses a gardener who had been in her employ.

In this last case the apparition was seen about seven and a half hours after the death. This, as Gurney remarked, makes it still more difficult to regard the case as a telepathic impression transmitted at the moment of death, and remaining latent in the mind of the percipient. The incident suggests rather that Bard, the gardener, had come upon Mrs. de Freville's spirit, so to say, unawares. One cannot imagine that she specially wished him to see her, and to see her engaged in what seems so needless and undignified a retracing of currents of earthly thought.

Rather this seems a rudimentary _haunting_--an incipient lapse into those aimless, perhaps unconscious, reappearances in familiar spots which may persist (as it would seem) for many years after death.

A somewhat similar case is that of Colonel Crealock (in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 432) where a soldier who had been dead some hours was seen by his superior officer in camp at night rolling up and taking away his bed.

It is, indeed, mainly by dwelling on these intermediate cases, between a message-bringing apparition and a purposeless haunt, that we have most hope of understanding the typical haunt which, while it has been in a sense the most popular of all our phenomena, is yet to the careful inquirer one of the least satisfactory. One main evidential difficulty generally lies in identifying the haunting figure, in finding anything to connect the history of the house with the vague and often various sights and sounds which perplex or terrify its flesh and blood inhabitants. We must, at any rate, rid ourselves of the notion that some great crime or catastrophe is always to be sought as the groundwork of a haunt of this kind. To that negative conclusion our cases concordantly point us.[154] The apparition is most often seen by a stranger, several months after the death, with no apparent reason for its appearance at that special time. This last point is of interest in considering the question whether the hallucinatory picture could have been projected from any still incarnate mind. In one case--the vision of the Bishop of St. Brieuc (given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 460), there _was_ such a special reason--the Bishop's body, unknown to the percipient, was at that moment being buried at the distance of a few miles. Mr. Podmore suggests (_op. cit._, vol. vi. p. 301) that it was from the minds of the living mourners that the Bishop's phantasm was generated. That hypothesis may have its portion of truth; the surrounding emotion may have been one of the factors which made the apparition possible. But the a.s.sumption that it was the only admissible factor--that the departed Bishop's own possible agency must be set aside altogether--lands us, I think, in difficulties greater than those which we should thus escape.

The reader who tries to apply it to the apparitions quoted in my earlier groups will find himself in a labyrinth of complexity. Still more will this be the case in dealing with the far fuller and more explicit _motor___ communications, by automatic writing or speech, which we shall have to discuss in the two next chapters. Unless the actual evidence be disallowed in a wholesale manner, we shall be forced, I think, to admit the continued action of the departed as a main element in these apparitions.

I do not say as the _only_ element. I myself hold, as already implied, that the thought and emotion of living persons does largely intervene, as aiding or conditioning the independent action of the departed. I even believe that it is possible that, say, an intense fixation of my own mind on a departed spirit may aid that spirit to manifest at a special moment--and not even to me, but to a percipient more sensitive than myself. In the boundless ocean of mind innumerable currents and tides s.h.i.+ft with the s.h.i.+fting emotion of each several soul.

But now we are confronted by another possible element in these vaguer cla.s.ses of apparitions, harder to evaluate even than the possible action of incarnate minds. I mean the possible _results_ of past mental action, which, for aught we know, may persist in some perceptible manner, without fresh reinforcement, just as the results of past bodily action persist. This question leads to the still wider question of _retrocognition_, and of the relation of psychical phenomena to _time_ generally--a problem whose discussion cannot be attempted here.[155] Yet we must remember that such possibilities exist; they may explain certain phenomena into which little of fresh intelligence seems to enter, as, for instance, the alleged persistence, perhaps for years, of meaningless sounds in a particular room or house.

And since we are coming now to cases into which this element of meaningless sound will enter largely, it seems right to begin their discussion with a small group of cases where there is evidence for the definite agency of some dying or deceased person in connection with inarticulate sounds, or I should rather say of the _connection_ of some deceased person with the sounds; since the best explanation may perhaps be that they are _sounds of welcome_--before or after actual death--corresponding to those _apparitions of welcome_ of which we have already had specimens. One of our cases (see _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 639 [-- 747]) is remarkable in that the auditory hallucination--a sound as of female voices gently singing--was heard by five persons, by four of them, as it seems, independently, and in two places, on different sides of the house. At the same time, one person--the Eton master whose mother had just died, and who was therefore presumably in a frame of mind more p.r.o.ne to hallucination than the physician, matron, friend, or servants who actually did hear the singing--himself heard nothing at all. In this case the physician felt no doubt that Mrs. L. was actually dead; and in fact it was during the laying out of the body that the sounds occurred.

I have already discussed (Chapter VI.) the nature of these phantasmal sounds;--nor is it contrary to our a.n.a.logies that the person most deeply concerned in the death should in this case fail to hear them. But the point on which I would here lay stress is that phantasmal sounds--even non-articulate sounds--may be as clear a manifestation of personality as phantasmal figures. Among non-articulate noises music is, of course, the most pleasing; but sounds, for instance, which imitate the work of a carpenter's shop, may be equally human and intelligent. In some of the cases of this cla.s.s we see apparent attempts of various kinds to simulate sounds such as men and women--or manufactured, as opposed to natural, objects--are accustomed to produce. To claim this humanity, to indicate this intelligence, seems the only motive of sounds of this kind.[156]

These sounds, in their rudimentary attempt at showing intelligence, are about on a level with the exploits of the "Poltergeist," where coals are thrown about, water spilt, and so forth. Poltergeist phenomena, however, seldom coincide with the ordinary phenomena of a haunt. We have one remarkable case (_Journal_ S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 280-84 [868 B]) where Poltergeist phenomena coincide with a death, and a few cases where they are supposed to follow on a death; but, as a rule, where figures appear there are no movements; and where there are movements no apparition is seen. If alleged Poltergeist phenomena are always fraudulent, there would be nothing to be surprised at here. If, as I suspect, they are sometimes genuine, their dissociation from visual hallucinations may sometimes afford us a hint of value.

But after Poltergeists have been set aside,--after a severe line has been drawn excluding all those cases (in themselves singular enough) where the main phenomena observed consist of non-articulate sounds,--there remains a great ma.s.s of evidence to haunting,--that is, broadly speaking, to the fact that there are many houses in which more than one person has independently seen phantasmal figures, which usually, though not always, bear at least some resemblance to each other.[157] The facts thus baldly stated are beyond dispute. Their true interpretation is a very difficult matter. Mrs. Sidgwick gives four hypotheses, which I must quote at length as the first serious attempt ever made (so far as I know) to collect and face the difficulties of this problem, so often, but so loosely, discussed through all historical times. (From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. iii. pp. 146-8.)

"I will, therefore, proceed briefly to state and discuss the only four theories that have occurred to me.

"The two which I will take first in order a.s.sume that the apparitions are due to the agency or presence of the spirits of deceased men.

"There is first the popular view, that the apparition is something belonging to the external world--that, like ordinary matter, it occupies and moves through s.p.a.ce, and would be in the room whether the percipient were there to see it or not. This hypothesis involves us in many difficulties, of which one serious one--that of accounting for the clothes of the ghost--has often been urged, and never, I think, satisfactorily answered. Nevertheless, I am bound to admit that there is some little evidence tending to suggest this theory. For instance, in the account,[158] of which I have given an abstract, of the weeping lady who has appeared so frequently in a certain house, the following pa.s.sage occurs:--'They went after it (the figure) together into the drawing-room; it then came out, and went down the aforesaid pa.s.sage (leading to the kitchen), but was the next minute seen by another Miss [M.] ... come up the outside steps from the kitchen. On this particular day, Captain [M.'s] married daughter happened to be at an upstairs window ... and independently saw the figure continue her course across the lawn and into the orchard.' A considerable amount of clear evidence to the appearance of ghosts to independent observers in successive points in s.p.a.ce would certainly afford a strong argument for their having a definite relation to s.p.a.ce; but in estimating evidence of this kind it would be necessary to know how far the observer's attention had been drawn to the point in question. If it had been a real woman whom the Miss [M.'s] were observing, we should have inferred, with perfect certainty, from our knowledge that she could not be in two places at once, that she had been successively, in a certain order, in the places where she was seen by the three observers. If they had noted the moments at which they saw her, and comparing notes afterwards, found that according to these notes they had all seen her at the same time, or in some other order to that inferred, we should still feel absolute confidence in our inference, and should conclude that there must be something wrong about the watches or the notes. From a.s.sociation of ideas, it would be perfectly natural to make the same inference in the case of a ghost which looks exactly like a woman. But in the case of the ghost the inference would not be legitimate, because, unless the particular theory of ghosts which we are discussing be true, there is no reason, so far as we know, why it should not appear in two or more places at once. Hence, in the case of the ghost, a well-founded a.s.surance that the appearances were successive would require a careful observation of the times, which, so far as I know, has never been made.

On the whole, therefore, I must dismiss the popular theory as not having, in my opinion, even a _prima facie_ ground for serious consideration.

"The theory that I will next examine seems to me decidedly more plausible, from its a.n.a.logy to the conclusion to which I am brought by the examination of the evidence for phantasms of the living. This theory is that the apparition has no real relation to the external world, but is a hallucination caused in some way by some communication, without the intervention of the senses, between the disembodied spirit and the percipient, its form depending on the mind either of the spirit or of the percipient, or of both. In the case of haunted houses, however, a difficulty meets us that we do not encounter, or at least rarely encounter, in applying a similar hypothesis to explain phantasms of the living, or phantasms of the dead other than fixed local ghosts. In these cases we have generally to suppose a simple _rapport_ between mind and mind, but in a haunted house we have a _rapport_ complicated by its apparent dependence on locality. It seems necessary to make the improbable a.s.sumption, that the spirit is interested in an entirely special way in a particular house (though possibly this interest may be of a subconscious kind), and that his interest in it puts him into connection with another mind, occupied with it in the way that that of a living person actually there must consciously or unconsciously be, while he does not get into similar communication with the same, or with other persons elsewhere.

"If, notwithstanding these difficulties, it be true that haunting is due in any way to the agency of deceased persons, and conveys a definite idea of them to the percipients through the resemblance to them of the apparition, then, by patiently continuing our investigations, we may expect, sooner or later, to obtain a sufficient amount of evidence to connect clearly the commencement of hauntings with the death of particular persons, and to establish clearly the likeness of the apparition to those persons. The fact that almost everybody is now photographed ought to be of material a.s.sistance in obtaining evidence of this latter kind.

"My third theory dispenses with the agency of disembodied spirits, but involves us in other and perhaps equally great improbabilities. It is that the first appearance is a purely subjective hallucination, and that the subsequent similar appearances, both to the original percipient and to others, are the result of the first appearance; unconscious expectancy causing them in the case of the original percipient, and some sort of telepathic communication from the original percipient in the case of others. In fact, it a.s.sumes that a tendency to a particular hallucination is in a way infectious. If this theory be true, I should expect to find that the apparently independent appearances after the first depended on the percipient's having had some sort of intercourse with some one who had seen the ghost before, and that any decided discontinuity of occupancy would stop the haunting. I should also expect to find, as we do in one of the cases I have quoted, that sometimes the supposed ghost would follow the family from one abode to another, appearing to haunt them rather than any particular house.

"The fourth theory that I shall mention is one which I can hardly expect to appear plausible, and which, therefore, I only introduce because I think that it corresponds best to a certain part of the evidence;--and, as I have already said, considering the altogether tentative way in which we are inevitably dealing with this obscure subject, it is as well to express definitely every hypothesis which an impartial consideration of the facts suggests. It is that there is something in the actual building itself--some subtle physical influence--which produces in the brain that effect which, in its turn, becomes the cause of a hallucination. It is certainly difficult on this hypothesis alone to suppose that the hallucinations of different people would be similar, but we might account for this by a combination of this hypothesis and the last. The idea is suggested by the case, of which I have given an abstract, where the haunting continued through more than one occupancy, but changed its character; and if there be any truth in the theory, I should expect in time to obtain a good deal more evidence of this kind, combined with evidence that the same persons do not as a rule encounter ghosts elsewhere. I should also expect evidence to be forthcoming supporting the popular idea that repairs and alterations of the building sometimes cause the haunting to cease."[159]

These hypotheses--none of which, as Mrs. Sidgwick expressly states (_op.

cit._, p. 145), seemed to herself satisfactory--did nevertheless, I think, comprise all the deductions which could reasonably be made from the evidence as it at that time stood. A few modifications, which the experience of subsequent years has led me to introduce, can hardly be said to afford further _explanation_, although they state the difficulties in what now seems to me a more hopeful way.

In the first place then--as already explained in Chapter VI.--I in some sense fuse into one Mrs. Sidgwick's two first hypotheses by my own hypothesis of actual presence, actual spatial changes induced in the metetherial, but not in the material world. I hold that when the phantasm is discerned by more than one person at once (and on some other, but not all other occasions) it is actually effecting a change in that portion of s.p.a.ce where it is perceived, although not, as a rule, in the matter which occupies that place. It is, therefore, not optically nor acoustically perceived; perhaps no rays of light are reflected nor waves of air set in motion; but an unknown form of supernormal perception, not necessarily acting through the sensory end-organs, comes into play. In the next place, I am inclined to lay stress on the parallel between these narratives of haunting and those phantasms of the living which I have already cla.s.sed as _psychorrhagic_. In each case, as it seems to me, there is an involuntary detachment of some element of the spirit, probably with no knowledge thereof at the main centre of consciousness. Those "haunts by the living," as they may be called, where, for instance, a man is seen phantasmally standing before his own fireplace, seem to me to be repeated, perhaps more readily, after the spirit is freed from the flesh.

Again, I think that the curious question as to the influence of certain _houses_ in generating apparitions may be included under the broader heading of Retrocognition. That is to say, we are not here dealing with a special condition of certain houses, but with a branch of the wide problem as to the relation of supernormal phenomena to _time_.

Manifestations which occur in haunted houses depend, let us say, on something which has taken place a long time ago. In what way do they depend on that past event? Are they a sequel, or only a residue? Is there fresh operation going on, or only fresh perception of something already accomplished? Or can we in such a case draw any real distinction between a continued action and a continued perception of a past action?

The closest parallel, as it seems to me, although not at first sight an obvious one, lies between these phenomena of haunting, these persistent sights and sounds, and certain phenomena of crystal-vision and of automatic script, which also seem to depend somehow upon long-past events,--to be their sequel or their residue. One specimen case I give in Appendix (VII. G), where the connection of the haunting apparition with a certain person long deceased may be maintained with more than usual plausibility. From that level the traceable connections get weaker and weaker, until we come to phantasmal scenes where there is no longer any even apparent claim to the contemporary agency of human spirits.

Such a vision, for instance, as that of a line of spectral deer crossing a ford, may indeed, if seen in the same place by several independent observers, be held to be something more than a mere subjective fancy; but what in reality such a picture signifies is a question which brings us at once to theories of the permanence or simultaneity of all phenomena in a timeless Universal Soul.

Such conceptions, however difficult, are among the highest to which our mind can reach. Could we approach them more nearly, they might deeply influence our view, even of our own remote individual destiny. So, perhaps, shall it some day be; at present we may be well satisfied if we can push our knowledge of that destiny one step further than of old, even just behind that veil which has so long hung impenetrably before the eyes of men.