Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death Part 45

GEORGE BROWN.

Mr. Crum wrote later:--

DUBUQUE, IOWA, _August 15th, 1891_.

DEAR MR. HODGSON,--I send you in another cover a detailed account of interview with the Conleys. I could not get the doctor.

I have had a long talk with Mr. Hoffmann about the Conley incident, and think you have all the facts--and they are _facts_.

The girl Lizzie Conley swooned. She saw her dead father; she heard from him of the money left in his old s.h.i.+rt; she returned to bodily consciousness; she described her father's burial dress, robe, s.h.i.+rt, and slippers exactly, though she had never seen them. She described the pocket in the s.h.i.+rt that had been left for days in the shed at the undertaker's. It was a ragged-edged piece of red cloth clumsily sewn, and in this pocket was found a roll of bill--35 dollars in amount--as taken out by Mr. Hoffmann in presence of Pat Conley, son of the deceased, and brother of the Lizzie Conley whose remarkable dream or vision is the subject of inquiry.

AMOS CRUM, _Past. Univ. Ch._

...I herewith transcribe my questions addressed to Miss Elizabeth Conley, and her replies to the same concerning her alleged dream or vision....

On July 17th, about noon, I called at the Conley home near Ionia, Chickasaw County, Iowa, and inquired for Elizabeth Conley. She was present, and engaged in her domestic labours. When I stated the object of my call, she seemed quite reluctant for a moment to engage in conversation. Then she directed a lad who was present to leave the room. She said she would converse with me upon the matter pertaining to her father.

Q. What is your age? A. Twenty-eight.

Q. What is the state of your health? A. Not good since my father's death.

Q. What was the state of your health previous to his death? A. It was good. I was a healthy girl.

Q. Did you have dreams, visions, or swoons previous to your father's death? A. Why, I had _dreams_. Everybody has dreams.

Q. Have you ever made discoveries or received other information during your dreams or visions previous to your father's death? A.

No.

Q. Had there been anything unusual in your dreams or visions previous to your father's death? A. No, not that I know of.

Q. Was your father in the habit of carrying considerable sums of money about his person? A. Not that I knew of.

Q. Did you know _before his death_ of the pocket in the breast of the s.h.i.+rt worn by him to Dubuque? A. No.

Q. Did you wash or prepare that s.h.i.+rt for him to wear on his trip to Dubuque? A. No. It was a heavy woollen unders.h.i.+rt, and the pocket was st.i.tched inside of the breast of it.

Q. Will you recite the circ.u.mstances connected with the recovery of money from clothing worn by your father at the time of his death?

A. (after some hesitation) When they told me that father was dead I felt very sick and bad; I did not know anything. Then father came to me. He had on a white s.h.i.+rt and black clothes and slippers. When I came to, I told Pat [her brother] I had seen father. I asked him (Pat) if he had brought back father's old clothes. He said, "No,"

and asked me why I wanted them. I told him father said to me he had sewed a roll of bills inside of his grey s.h.i.+rt, in a pocket made of a piece of my old red dress. I went to sleep, and father came to me again. When I awoke I told Pat he must go and get the clothes.

Q. While in these swoons did you hear the ordinary conversations or noises in the house about you? A. No.

Q. Did you see your father's body after it was placed in its coffin? A. No; I did not see him after he left the house to go to Dubuque.

Q. Have you an education? A. No.

Q. Can you read and write? A. Oh yes, I can read and write; but I've not been to school much.

Q. Are you willing to write out what you have told me of this strange affair? A. Why, I've told you all I know about it.

She was averse to writing or to signing a written statement. During the conversation she was quite emotional, and manifested much effort to suppress her feelings. She is a little more than medium size, of Irish parentage, of Catholic faith, and shows by her conversation that her education is limited.

Her brother, Pat Conley, corroborates all that she has recited. He is a sincere and substantial man, and has no theory upon which to account for the strange facts that have come to his knowledge. In his presence Coroner Hoffmann, in Dubuque, found the s.h.i.+rt with its pocket of red cloth st.i.tched on the inside with long, straggling, and awkward st.i.tches, just as a dim-sighted old man or an awkward boy might sew it there. The pocket was about 7 [seven] inches deep, and in the pocket of that dirty old s.h.i.+rt that had lain in Hoffmann's back room was a roll of bills amounting to 35 dollars.

When the s.h.i.+rt was found with the pocket, as described by his sister after her swoon, and the money as told her by the old man _after his death_, Pat Conley seemed dazed and overcome by the mystery. Hoffmann says the girl, after her swoon, described exactly the burial suit, s.h.i.+rt, coat or robe, and satin slippers in which the body was prepared for burial. She even described minutely the slippers, which were of a new pattern that had not been in the market here, and which the girl could never have seen a sample of; and she had not seen, and never saw, the body of her father after it was placed in the coffin, and if she had seen it she could not have seen his feet "in the nice black satin slippers"

which she described....

AMOS CRUM, _Pastor Univ. Church_.

If we may accept the details of this narrative, which seems to have been carefully and promptly investigated, we find that the phantasm communicates two sets of facts: one of them known only to strangers (the dress in which he was buried), and one of them known only to himself (the existence of the inside pocket and the money therein). In discussing from what mind these images originate it is, of course, important to note whether any living minds, known or unknown to the percipient, were aware of the facts thus conveyed.

There are few cases where the communication between the percipient and the deceased seems to have been more direct than here. The hard, prosaic reality of the details of the message need not, of course, surprise us.

On the contrary, the father's sudden death in the midst of earthly business would at once retain his attention on money matters and facilitate his impressing them on the daughter's mind. One wishes that more could be learned of the daughter's condition when receiving the message. It seems to have resembled trance rather than dream.[229]

One other case in this group I must quote at length. It ill.u.s.trates the fact that the cases of deepest interest are often the hardest for the inquirer to get hold of.

From the _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. pp. 385-86.

The account of the percipient, Baron B. von Driesen, was written in November, 1890, and has been translated from the Russian by Mr. M.

Petrovo-Solovovo, who sent us the case.

[Baron von Driesen begins by saying that he has never believed and does not believe in the supernatural, and that he is more inclined to attribute the apparition he saw to his "excited fancy" than to anything else. After these preliminary remarks he proceeds as follows:--]

I must tell you that my father-in-law, M. N. J. Ponomareff, died in the country. This did not happen at once, but after a long and painful illness, whose sharp phases had obliged my wife and myself to join him long before his death. I had not been on good terms with M. Ponomareff. Different circ.u.mstances, which are out of place in this narrative, had estranged us from each other, and these relations did not change until his death. He died very quietly, after having given his blessing to all his family, including myself. A liturgy for the rest of his soul was to be celebrated on the ninth day. I remember very well how I went to bed between one and two o'clock on the eve of that day, and how I read the Gospel before falling asleep. My wife was sleeping in the same room. It was perfectly quiet. I had just put out the candle when footsteps were heard in the adjacent room--a sound of slippers shuffling, I might say--which ceased before the door of our bedroom. I called out, "Who is there?" No answer. I struck one match, then another, and when after the stifling smell of the sulphur the fire had lighted up the room, I saw M. Ponomareff standing before the closed door. Yes, it was he, in his blue dressing-gown, lined with squirrel furs and only half-b.u.t.toned, so that I could see his white waistcoat and his black trousers. It was he undoubtedly. I was not frightened. They say that, as a rule, one is _not_ frightened when seeing a ghost, as ghosts possess the quality of paralysing fear.

"What do you want?" I asked my father-in-law. M. Ponomareff made two steps forward, stopped before my bed, and said, "Basil Feodorovitch, I have acted wrongly towards you. Forgive me! Without this I do not feel at rest there." He was pointing to the ceiling with his left hand, whilst holding out his right to me. I seized this hand, which was long and cold, shook it, and answered, "Nicholas Ivanovitch, G.o.d is my witness that I have never had anything against you."

[The ghost of] my father-in-law bowed [or bent down], moved away, and went through the opposite door into the billiard-room, where he disappeared. I looked after him for a moment, crossed myself, put out the candle, and fell asleep with the sense of joy which a man who has done his duty must feel. The morning came. My wife's brothers, as well as our neighbours and the peasants, a.s.sembled, and the liturgy was celebrated by our confessor, the Rev. Father Basil. But when all was over, the same Father Basil led me aside, and said to me mysteriously, "Basil Feodorovitch, I have got something to say to you in private." My wife having come near us at this moment, the clergyman repeated his wish. I answered, "Father Basil, I have no secrets from my wife; please tell us what you wished to tell me alone."

Then Father Basil, who is living till now in the Koi parish of the district of Kas.h.i.+n [Gov. of Tver], said to me in a rather solemn voice, "This night at three o'clock Nicholas Ivanovitch [Ponomareff] appeared to me and begged of me to reconcile him to you."

(Signed) BARON BASIL DRIESEN.

Mr. Solovovo adds:--

The Baroness von Driesen is now dead, so that her evidence cannot be obtained....

I also saw Baron Basil von Driesen himself, and spoke with him about M. Ponomareff's ghost. He stated to me that if he were going to die to-morrow, he should still be ready to swear to the fact of his having seen the apparition, or something to this effect. I asked him to obtain for me the clergyman's account, to whom I had already written before seeing Baron von Driesen (though not knowing him), but without receiving an answer--which is but natural, after all. Baron von Driesen kindly promised to procure for me the account in question, as it was then his intention to visit different estates in Central Russia, including the one that had belonged to M. Ponomareff.

Baron Nicholas von Driesen--Baron Basil's son--called on me a few days ago. He stated, with regard to the case in question, that it was necessary to see the clergyman in order to induce him to write an account of what had happened to him.

Baron N. von Driesen afterwards sent a note to Mr. Solovovo, stating that his grandfather (M. Ponomareff) died on November 21st, 1860; and the testimony of the priest was obtained later. Mr. Solovovo, who had already ascertained independently that the Rev. Basil Bajenoff had been a priest at Koi in the year 1861, and was there still, writes:--

The following is the translation of the Rev. Basil Bajenoff's statement:--