Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death Part 52

HARTFORD, CONN., _March 2nd, 1892_.

...Miss C. is often in my study and consults my books freely, so that her dream was not remarkable. The dream of Mrs. L. (my wife) was also ordinary in character. The coincidence in time of the dreams may have been merely a coincidence. But that after these occurrences Mrs. L. should suddenly, without the least premeditation and without hesitation, take the right book and open it at the right page with the certainty of a somnambulist, seems to me strange....

These events took place yesterday, last night, and this morning.

F. S. LUTHER (Prof. Math., Trinity College).

Mrs. L. and Miss C. live at the same hotel and meet daily. Miss C. is engaged in writing an essay upon Emerson, and expresses to Mrs. L. her wish to obtain some particulars as to Emerson's private life. Mrs. L.

regrets that she has no book treating of the subject. During the night following this conversation Mrs. L. dreams of handing Miss C. a book containing an article such as is desired, and Miss C. dreams of telling Mrs. L. that she had procured just the information which she had been looking for. Each lady relates to the other her dream when they meet at breakfast the next morning. Mrs. L. returns to her room, and, while certainly not consciously thinking of Emerson, suddenly finds in her mind the thought, "There is the book which Miss C. needs." She goes directly to a bookcase, takes down vol. xvii. of the _Century Magazine_, and opens _immediately_ at the article, "The Homes and Haunts of Emerson." Mrs. L. had undoubtedly read this article in 1879, but she had never studied Emerson or his works, nor had she made any special effort to a.s.sist Miss C. in her search, though feeling a friend's interest in the proposed essay.

After receiving the book and hearing how it was selected, Miss C.

relates her dream more fully, it appearing that she had seemed to be standing in front of Mrs. L.'s shelves with a large, ill.u.s.trated book in her hands, and that in the book was something about Emerson.

Still later it is found that Miss C. had actually noticed the article in question while actually in the position reproduced in her dream. This, however, had happened about a month previous to the events just narrated, and before she had thought of looking up authorities as to Emerson, so that she had entirely forgotten the occurrence and the article. Neither did she, at that time, call Mrs. L.'s attention to the article, or mention Emerson.

According to the best information attainable, Miss C. was not thinking of her essay at the time when Mrs. L. felt the sudden impulse to take down a certain book. And perhaps it should be added that the volume is one of a complete set of the _Century_ variously disposed upon Mrs. L.'s shelves.

[This account is signed by Professor Luther, Mrs. L., and Miss C.]

Of special interest are a few cases where the actual mechanism of some brief communication from the spiritual world seems to suggest and lead up to the mechanism which we shall afterwards describe either as ecstasy or as possession.

(2) I give here a case which suggests such knowledge as may be learnt in ecstasy;--as though a message had been communicated to a sleeper during some brief excursion into the spiritual world,--which message was remembered for a few moments, in symbolic form, and then rapidly forgotten, as the sleeper returned fully into the normal waking state.

What is to be noted is that the personality of sleep, to which I attribute the spiritual excursion, seems at first to have been "controlling" the awakened organism. In other words, Professor Thoulet was partially entranced or _possessed_ by his own spirit or subliminal self.

I quote from _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 503-5, a translation of the original account of the case in the _Annales des Sciences Psychiques_ (September-October, 1891).

Professor Thoulet writes to Professor Richet as follows:--

_April 17th, 1891._

...During the summer of 1867, I was officially the a.s.sistant, but in reality the friend, in spite of difference in age, of M. F., a former officer in the navy, who had gone into business. We were trying to set on foot again the exploitation of an old sulphur mine at Rivanazzaro, near Voghera, in Piedmont, which had been long abandoned on account of a falling in.

We occupied the same rooms, and our relations were those of father and son, or of elder and younger brother....

I knew that Madame F., who lived at Toulon, and with whom I was slightly acquainted, would soon be confined. I cannot say I was indifferent about this fact, for it concerned M. F.; but it certainly caused me no profound emotion; it was a second child, all was going well, and M. F. was not anxious. I myself was well and calm. It is true that a few days before, in Burgundy, my mother had fallen out of a carriage; but the fall had no bad consequences, and the letter which informed me of it also told me there was no harm done.

M. F. and I slept in adjoining rooms, and as it was hot we left the door between them open. One morning I sprang suddenly out of bed, crossed my room, entered that of M. F., and awakened him by crying out, "You have just got a little girl; the telegram says ..." Upon this I began to read the telegram. M. F. sat up and listened; but all at once I understood that I had been asleep, and that consequently my telegram was only a dream, not to be believed; and then, at the same time, this telegram, which was somehow in my hand and of which I had read about three lines aloud, word for word, seemed to withdraw from my eyes as if some one were carrying it off open; the words disappeared, though their image still remained; those which I had _p.r.o.nounced_ remained in my memory, while the rest of the telegram was only a _form_.

I stammered something; M. F. got up and led me into the dining-room, and made me write down the words I had p.r.o.nounced; when I came to the lines which, though they had disappeared from my memory, still remained pictured in my eye, I replaced them by dots, making a sort of drawing of them. Remark that the telegram was not written in common terms; there were about six lines of it, and I had read more than two of them. Then, becoming aware of our rather incorrect costume, M. F. and I began to laugh, and went back to our beds.

Two or three days after I left for Toree; I tried in vain to remember the rest of the telegram; I went on to Turin, and eight or ten days after my dream I received the following telegram from M.

F., "Come directly, you were right."

I returned to Rivanazzaro and M. F. showed me a telegram which he had received the evening before; I recognised it as the one I had seen in my dream; the beginning was exactly what I had written, and the end, which was exactly like my drawing, enabled me to read _again_ the words which I saw _again_. Please remark that the confinement had taken place the evening before, and therefore the fact was not that I, being in Italy, had seen a telegram which already existed in France--this I might with some difficulty have understood--but that I had seen it ten days before it existed or could have existed; since the event it announced had not yet taken place. I have turned this phenomenon over in my memory and reasoned about it many times, trying to explain it, to connect it with something, with a previous conversation, with some mental tension, with an a.n.a.logy, a wish,--and all in vain. M. F. is dead, and the paper I wrote has disappeared. If I were called before a court of justice about it, I could not furnish the shadow of a material proof, and again the two personalities which exist in me, the animal and the _savant_, have disputed on this subject so often that sometimes I doubt it myself. However, the animal, obstinate as an animal usually is, repeats incessantly that I have seen, and I have read, and it is useless for me to tell myself that if any one else told me such a story I should not believe it. I am obliged to admit that it happened.

J. THOULET, _Professor at the Faculte des Sciences at Nancy_.

Professor Richet adds:--

M. Thoulet has lately confirmed all the details contained in his letter. He has no longer any written trace of this old story, but the recollection of it is perfectly clear. He a.s.sured me that he had _seen_ and _read_ the telegram like a real object....

(3) And now I quote a case where a kind of conversation is indicated between the sleeper and some communicating spirit;--recalling the sc.r.a.ps of conversation sometimes overheard (as it were) between Mrs. Piper and some "control" when she is in the act of awaking from trance. These moments "between two worlds" are often, as will be seen, of high significance. In the case here cited we seem to see Mr. Goodall at first misapprehending a message, and himself automatically uttering the misapprehension, and then receiving the needed correction from his invisible interlocutor.

From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 453-5. The following narrative was communicated by Mr. Edward A. Goodall, of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, London:--

_May 1888._

At Midsummer, 1869, I left London for Naples. The heat being excessive, people were leaving for Ischia, and I thought it best to go there myself.

Crossing by steamer, I slept one night at Casamicciola, on the coast, and walked next morning into the town of Ischia.

Liking the hotel there better than my quarters of the previous night, I fetched my small amount of luggage by help of a man, who returned with me on foot beside an animal which I rode--one of the fine, sure-footed, big donkeys of the country. Arrived at the hotel, and while sitting perfectly still in my saddle talking to the landlady, the donkey went down upon his knees as if he had been shot or struck by lightning, throwing me over his head upon the lava pavement. In endeavouring to save myself my right hand was badly injured. It soon became much swollen and very painful. A Neapolitan doctor on the spot said no bones were broken, but perfect rest would be needful, with my arm in a sling. Sketching, of course, was impossible, and with neither books, newspapers, nor letters I felt my inactivity keenly.

It must have been on my third or fourth night, and about the middle of it, when I awoke, as it seemed at the sound of my own voice, saying, "I know I have lost my dearest little May." Another voice, which I in no way recognised, answered, "_No_, not May, but your _youngest boy_."

The distinctness and solemnity of the voice made such a distressing impression upon me that I slept no more. I got up at daybreak, and went out, noticing for the first time telegraph-poles and wires.

Without delay I communicated with the postmaster at Naples, and by next boat received two letters from home. I opened them according to dates outside. The first told me that my youngest boy was taken suddenly ill; the second, that he was dead.

Neither on his account nor on that of any of my family had I any cause for uneasiness. All were quite well on my taking leave of them so lately. My impression ever since has been that the time of the death coincided as nearly as we could judge with the time of my accident.[233]

In writing to Mrs. Goodall, I called the incident of the voice a dream, as less likely perhaps to disturb her than the details which I gave on reaching home, and which I have now repeated.

My letters happen to have been preserved.

I have never had any hallucination of any kind, nor am I in the habit of talking in my sleep. I do remember once waking with some words of mere nonsense upon my lips, but the experience of the voice speaking to me was absolutely unique.

EDWARD A. GOODALL.

Extracts from letters to Mrs. E. A. Goodall from Ischia:--

_Wednesday, August 11th, 1869._

The postman brought me two letters containing sad news indeed. Poor little Percy. I dreamt some nights since the poor little fellow was taken from us....

_August 14th._

I did not tell you, dear, the particulars of my dream about poor little Percy.

I had been for several days very fidgety and wretched at getting no letters from home, and had gone to bed in worse spirits than usual, and in my dream I fancied I said: "I have lost my dearest little May." A strange voice seemed to say: "No, _not_ May but your youngest boy," not mentioning his name....

Mr. Goodall gave me verbally a concordant account of the affair, and several members of his family, who were present at our interview, recollected the strong impression made on him and them at the time.

(4) The next case is precisely a miniature case of possession.

From the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 278-280.