Buy: Halloween and the Strange in Story and History for 99 cents (50 Chapters), see a local listing for this book here
There are many cases in which the wraith is seen at an indefinite period before or after the catastrophe. Of these I could quote a great number; but as they generally resolve themselves into simply seeing a person where they were not, and death ensuing very shortly afterward, a few will suffice.
There is a very remarkable story of this kind, related by Macnish, which he calls “a case of hallucination, arising without the individual being conscious of any physical cause by which it might be occasioned.” If this case stood alone, strange as it is, I should think so too: but when similar instances abound, as they do, I can not bring myself to dispose of it so easily. The story is as follows: Mr. H?—— was one day walking along the street, apparently in perfect health, when he saw, or supposed he saw, his acquaintance, Mr. C?——, walking before him. He called to him aloud; but he did not seem to hear him, and continued moving on. Mr. H?—— then quickened his pace for the purpose of overtaking him; but the other increased his, also, as if to keep ahead of his pursuer, and proceeded at such a rate that Mr. H?—— found it impossible to make up to him. This continued for some time, till, on Mr. C?——’s reaching a gate, he opened it and passed in, slamming it violently in Mr. H?——’s face. Confounded at such treatment from a friend, the latter instantly opened the gate, and looked down the long lane into which it led, where, to his astonishment, no one was to be seen. Determined to unravel the mystery, he then went to Mr. C?——’s house, and his surprise was great to hear that he was confined to his bed, and had been so for several days. A week or two afterward, these gentlemen met at the house of a common friend, when Mr. H?—— related the circumstance, jocularly telling Mr. C?—— that, as he had seen his wraith, he of course could not live long. The person addressed laughed heartily, as did the rest of the party; but, in a few days, Mr. C?—— was attacked with putrid sore throat and died; and within a short period of his death, Mr. H?—— was also in the grave.
This is a very striking case; the hastening on, and the actually opening and shutting the gate, evincing not only will but power to produce mechanical effects, at a time the person was bodily elsewhere. It is true he was ill, and it is highly probable was at the time asleep. The showing himself to Mr. H?——, who was so soon to follow him to the grave, is another peculiarity which appears frequently to attend these cases, and which seems like what was in old English, and is still in Scotch, called a tryst—an appointment to meet again between those spirits, so soon to be free. Supposing Mr. C?—— to have been asleep, he was possibly, in that state, aware of what impended over both.
There is a still more remarkable case given by Mr. Barham in his reminiscences. I have no other authority for it: but he relates, as a fact, that a respectable young woman was awaked, one night, by hearing somebody in her room, and that on looking up she saw a young man to whom she was engaged. Extremely offended by such an intrusion, she bade him instantly depart, if he wished her ever to speak to him again. Whereupon he bade her not be frightened, but said he was come to tell her that he was to die that day six weeks,—and then disappeared. Having ascertained that the young man himself could not possibly have been in her room, she was naturally much alarmed, and, her evident depression leading to some inquiries, she communicated what had occurred to the family with whom she lived—I think as dairy-maid; but I quote from memory. They attached little importance to what seemed so improbable, more especially as the young man continued in perfectly good health, and entirely ignorant of this prediction, which his mistress had the prudence to conceal from him. When the fatal day arrived, these ladies saw the girl looking very cheerful, as they were going for their morning’s ride, and observed to each other that the prophecy did not seem likely to be fulfilled; but when they returned, they saw her running up the avenue toward the house in great agitation, and learned that her lover was either dead or dying, from an accident.
The only key I can suggest as the explanation of such a phenomenon as this, is, that the young man in his sleep was aware of the fate that awaited him,—and that while the body lay in his bed, in a state approaching to trance or catalepsy, the freed spirit—free as the spirits of the actual dead—went forth to tell the tale to the mistress of his soul.
Franz von Baader says, in a letter to Dr. Kerner, that Eckartshausen, shortly before his death, assured him that he possessed the power of making a person’s double or wraith appear, while his body lay elsewhere in a state of trance or catalepsy. He added that the experiment might be dangerous, if care were not taken to prevent intercepting the rapport of the ethereal form with the material one.
A lady, an entire disbeliever in these spiritual phenomena, was one day walking in her own garden with her husband, who was indisposed, leaning on her arm, when seeing a man with his back toward them, and a spade in his hand, digging, she exclaimed, “Look there! who’s that?” “Where?” said her companion; and at that moment the figure leaning on the spade turned round and looked at her, sadly shaking its head, and she saw it was her husband. She avoided an explanation, by pretending she had made a mistake. Three days afterward the gentleman died,—leaving her entirely converted to a belief she had previously scoffed at.
Here, again, the foreknowledge and evident design, as well as the power of manifesting it, are extremely curious—more especially as the antitype of the figure was neither in a trance nor asleep, but perfectly conscious, walking and talking. If any particular purpose were to be gained by the information indicated, the solution might be less difficult. One object, it is true, may have been, and indeed was attained, namely, the change in the opinions of the wife; and it is impossible to say what influence such a conversion may have had on her after-life.
It must be admitted that these cases are very perplexing. We might, indeed, get rid of them by denying them; but the instances are too numerous, and the phenomenon has been too well known in all ages, to be set aside so easily. In the above examples, the apparition, or wraith, has been in some way connected with the death of the person whose visionary likeness is seen; and, in most of these instances, the earnest longing to behold those beloved seems to have been the means of effecting the object. The mystery of death is to us so awful and impenetrable, and we know so little of the mode in which the spiritual and the corporeal are united and kept together during the continuance of life, or what condition may ensue when this connection is about to be dissolved, that while we look with wonder upon such phenomena as those above alluded to, we yet find very few persons who are disposed to reject them as utterly apocryphal. They feel that in that department, already so mysterious, there may exist a greater mystery still; and the very terror with which the thoughts of present death inspires most minds, deters people from treating this class of facts with that scornful skepticism with which many approximate ones are denied and laughed at. Nevertheless, if we suppose the person to have been dead, though it be but an inappreciable instant of time before he appears, the appearance comes under the denomination of what is commonly called a ghost; for whether the spirit has been parted from the body one second or fifty years, ought to make no difference in our appreciation of the fact, nor is the difficulty less in one case than the other.
I mention this because I have met with, and do meet with, people constantly, who admit this class of facts, while they declare they can not believe in ghosts; the instances, they say, of people being seen at a distance at the period of their death, are too numerous to permit of the fact being denied. In granting it, however, they seem to me to grant everything. If, as I have said above, the person be dead, the form seen is a ghost or spectre, whether he has been dead a second or a century; if he be alive, the difficulty is certainly not diminished; on the contrary, it appears to me to be considerably augmented; and it is to this perplexing class of facts that I shall next proceed, namely, those in which the person is not only alive, as in some of the cases above related, but where the phenomenon seems to occur without any reference to the death of the subject, present or prospective.
In either case, we are forced to conclude that the thing seen is the same; the questions are, what is it that we see, and how does it render itself visible? and, still more difficult to answer, appears the question, of how it can communicate intelligence, or exert a mechanical force. As, however, this investigation will be more in its place when I have reached that department of my subject commonly called ghosts, I will defer it for the present, and merely confine myself to that of doubles, or doppelgängers, as the Germans denominate the appearance of a person out of his body.
In treating of the case of Auguste Müller, a remarkable somnambule, who possessed the power of appearing elsewhere, while his body lay cold and stiff in his bed, Professor Keiser, who attended him, says, that the phenomenon, as regards the seer, must be looked upon as purely subjective—that is, that there was no outstanding form of Auguste Müller visible to the sensuous organs, but that the magnetic influence of the somnambule, by the force of his will, acted on the imagination of the seer, and called up the image which he believed he saw. But then, allowing this to be possible, as Dr. Werner says, how are we to account for those numerous cases in which there is no somnambule concerned in the matter, and no especial rapport, that we are aware of, established between the parties? And yet these latter cases are much the most frequent; for, although I have met with numerous instances recorded by the German physiologists, of what is called far-working on the part of the somnambules, this power of appearing out of the body seems to be a very rare one. Many persons will be surprised at these allusions to a kind of magnetic phenomena, of which, in this country, so little is known or believed; but the physiologists and psychologists of Germany have been studying this subject for the last fifty years, and the volumes filled with their theoretical views and records of cases, are numerous beyond anything the English public has an idea of.
The only other theory I have met with, which pretends to explain the mode of this double appearance, is that of the spirit leaving the body, as we have supposed it to do in cases of dreams and catalepsy; in which instances the nerve-spirit, which seems to be the archæus or astral spirit of the ancient philosophers, has the power of projecting a visible body out of the imponderable matter of the atmosphere. According to this theory, this nerve-spirit, which seems to be an embodiment of—or rather, a body constructed out of the nervous fluid, or ether—in short, the spiritual body of St. Paul, is the bond of union between the body and the soul, or spirit; and has the plastic force of raising up an aerial form. Being the highest organic power, it can not by any other, physical or chemical, be destroyed; and when the body is cast off, it follows the soul; and as, during life, it is the means by which the soul acts upon the body, and is thus enabled to communicate with the external world, so when the spirit is disembodied, it is through this nerve-spirit that it can make itself visible, and even exercise mechanical powers.
It is certain, that not only somnambules, but sick persons, are occasionally sensible of a feeling that seems to lend some countenance to this latter theory.
The girl at Canton, for example, mentioned in a former chapter, as well as many somnambulic patients, declare, while their bodies are lying stiff and cold, that they see it, as if out of it; and, in some instances, they describe particulars of its appearance, which they could not see in the ordinary way. There are also numerous cases of sick persons seeing themselves double, where no tendency to delirium or spectral illusion has been observed. These are, in this country, always placed under the latter category; but I find various instances recorded by the German physiologists, where this appearance has been seen by others, and even by children, at the same that it was felt by the invalid. In one of these cases, I find the sick person saying, “I can not think how I am lying. It seems to me that I am divided and lying in two places at once.” It is remarkable, that a friend of my own, during an illness in the autumn of 1845, expressed precisely the same feeling; we, however, saw nothing of this second ego; but it must be remembered, that the seeing of these things, as I have said in a former chapter, probably depends on a peculiar faculty or condition of the seer. The servant of Elisha was not blind, but yet he could not see what his master saw, till his eyes were opened—that is, till he was rendered capable of perceiving spiritual objects.
When Peter was released from prison by the angel—and it is not amiss here to remark, that even he “wist not that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision,” that is, he did not believe his senses, but supposed himself the victim of a spectral illusion—but when he was released, and went and knocked at the door of the gate, where many of his friends were assembled, they, not conceiving it possible he could have escaped, said, when the girl who had opened the door insisted that he was there, “It is his angel.” What did they mean by this? The expression is not an angel, but his angel. Now, it is not a little remarkable, that in the East, to this day, a double, or doppelgänger, is called a man’s angel, or messenger. As we can not suppose that this term was used otherwise than seriously by the disciples that were gathered together in Mark’s house, for they were in trouble about Peter, and, when he arrived, were engaged in prayer, we are entitled to believe they alluded to some recognised phenomenon. They knew, either that the likeness of a man—his spiritual self—sometimes appeared where bodily he was not; and that this imago or idolon was capable of exerting a mechanical force, or else that other spirits sometimes assumed a mortal form, or they would not have supposed it to be Peter’s angel that had knocked at the gate.
Dr. Ennemoser, who always leans to the physical rather than the psychical explanation of a phenomenon, says, that the faculty of self-seeing, which is analogous to seeing another person’s double, is to be considered an illusion; but that this imago of another seen at a distance, at the moment of death, must be supposed to have an objective reality. But if we are capable of thus perceiving the imago of another person, I can not comprehend why we may not see our own; unless, indeed, the former was never perceived but when the body of the person seen was in a state of insensibility; but this does not always seem to be a necessary condition, as will appear by some examples I am about to detail. The faculty of perceiving the object, Dr. Ennemoser considers analogous to that of second sight, and thinks it may be evolved by local, as well as idiosyncratical conditions. The difficulty arising from the fact that some persons are in the habit of seeing the wraiths of their friends and relations, must be explained by his hypothesis. The spirit, as soon as liberated from the body, is adapted for communion with all spirits, embodied or otherwise; but all embodied spirits are not prepared for communion with it.
A Mr. R?——, a gentleman who has attracted public attention by some scientific discoveries, had had a fit of illness at Rotterdam. He was in a state of convalescence, but was still so far taking care of himself as to spend part of the day in bed, when, as he was lying there one morning, the door opened, and there entered in tears, a lady with whom he was intimately acquainted, but whom he believed to be in England. She walked hastily to the side of his bed, wrung her hands, evincing by her gestures extreme anguish of mind, and before he could sufficiently recover his surprise to inquire the cause of her distress and sudden appearance, she was gone. She did not disappear, but walked out of the room again, and Mr. R?—— immediately summoned the servants of the hotel, for the purpose of making inquiries about the English lady—when she came, what had happened to her, and where she had gone to, on quitting his room? The people declared there was no such person there; he insisted there was, but they at length convinced him that they, at least, knew nothing about her. When his physician visited him, he naturally expressed the great perplexity into which he had been thrown by this circumstance; and, as the doctor could find no symptoms about his patient that could warrant a suspicion of spectral illusion, they made a note of the date and hour of the occurrence, and Mr. R?—— took the earliest opportunity of ascertaining if anything had happened to the lady in question. Nothing had happened to herself, but at that precise period her son had expired, and she was actually in the state of distress in which Mr. R?—— beheld her. It would be extremely interesting to know whether her thoughts had been intensely directed to Mr. R?—— at the moment; but that is a point which I have not been able to ascertain. At all events the impelling cause of the form projected, be the mode of it what it may, appears to have been violent emotion. The following circumstance, which is forwarded to me by the gentleman to whom it occurred, appears to have the same origin:—
“On the evening of the 12th of March, 1792,” says Mr. H?——, an artist, and a man of science, “I had been reading in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ and retired to my room somewhat fatigued, but not inclined to sleep. It was a bright moonlight night and I had extinguished my candle and was sitting on the side of the bed, deliberately taking off my clothes, when I was amazed to behold the visible appearance of my half-uncle, Mr. R. Robertson, standing before me; and, at the same instant, I heard the words, ‘Twice will be sufficient!’ The face was so distinct that I actually saw the pock-pits. His dress seemed to be made of a strong twilled sort of sackcloth, and of the same dingy color. It was more like a woman’s dress than a man’s—resembling a petticoat, the neck-band close to the chin, and the garment covering the whole person, so that I saw neither hands nor feet. While the figure stood there, I twisted my fingers till they cracked, that I might be sure I was awake.
“On the following morning, I inquired if anybody had heard lately of Mr. R., and was well laughed at when I confessed the origin of my inquiry. I confess I thought he was dead; but when my grandfather heard the story, he said that the dress I described, resembled the strait-jacket Mr. R. had been put in formerly, under an attack of insanity. Subsequently, we learned that on the night, and at the very hour I had seen him, he had attempted suicide, and been actually put into a strait-jacket.
“He afterward recovered, and went to Egypt with Sir Ralph Abercrombie. Some people laugh at this story, and maintain that it was a delusion of the imagination; but surely this is blinking the question! Why should my imagination create such an image, while my mind was entirely engrossed with a mathematical problem?”
The words “Twice will be sufficient.” probably embodied the thought, uttered or not, of the maniac, under the influence of his emotion—two blows or two stabs would be sufficient for his purpose.
Dr. Kerner relates a case of a Dr. John B?——, who was studying medicine in Paris, seeing his mother one night, shortly after he had got into bed, and before he had put out his light. She was dressed after a fashion in which he had never seen her; but she vanished,—and thus, aware of the nature of the appearance, he became much alarmed, and wrote home to inquire after her health. The answer he received was that she was extremely unwell, having been under the most intense anxiety on his account, from hearing that several medical students in Paris had been arrested as resurrectionists; and, knowing his passion for anatomical investigations, she had apprehended he might be among the number. The letter concluded with an earnest request that he would pay her a visit. He did so; and his surprise was so great on meeting her, to perceive that she was dressed exactly as he had seen her in his room at Paris, that he could not at first embrace her, and was obliged to explain the cause of his astonishment and repugnance.
An analogous case to these is that of Dr. Donne,—which is already mentioned in so many publications, that I should not allude to it here but for the purpose of showing that these examples belong to a class of facts, and that it is not to be supposed that similarity argues identity, or that one and the same story is reproduced with new names and localities. I mention this because, when circumstances of this kind are related, I sometimes hear people say, “Oh, I have heard that story before, but it was said to have happened to Mr. So-and-so, or at such a place;” the truth being, that these things happen in all places and to a great variety of people.
Dr. Donne was with the embassy in Paris, where he had been but a short time, when his friend Mr. Roberts, entering the salon, found him in a state of considerable agitation. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered to speak, he said that his wife had passed twice through the room with a dead child in her arms. An express was immediately despatched to England to inquire for the lady, and the intelligence returned was that, after much suffering, she had been delivered of a dead infant. The delivery had taken place at the time that her husband had seen her in Paris. Nobody has ever disputed Dr. Donne’s assertion that he saw his wife: but, as usual, the case is crammed into the theory of spectral illusions. They say Dr. Donne was naturally very anxious about his wife’s approaching confinement, of which he must have been aware, and that his excited imagination did all the rest. In the first place, I do not find it recorded that he was suffering any particular anxiety on the subject; and, even if he were, the coincidences in time and in the circumstance of the dead child remain unexplained. Neither are we led to believe that the doctor was unwell, or living the kind of life that is apt to breed thick-coming fancies. He was attached to the embassy in the gay city of Paris; he had just been taking luncheon with others of the suite, and had been left alone but a short time, when he was found in the state of amazement above described. If such extraordinary cases of spectral illusion as this, and many others I am recording, can suddenly arise in constitutions apparently healthy, it is certainly high time that the medical world reconsider the subject, and give us some more comprehensible theory of it; if they are not cases of spectral illusion, but are to be explained under that vague and abused term imagination, let us be told something more about imagination—a service which those who consider the word sufficient to account for these strange phenomena, must of course be qualified to perform. If, however, both these hypotheses—for they are but simple hypotheses, unsupported by any proof whatever, only, being delivered with an air of authority in a rationalistic age, they have been allowed to pass unquestioned—if, however, they are not found sufficient to satisfy a vast number of minds, which I know to be the case, I think the inquiry I am instituting can not be wholly useless or unacceptable, let it lead us where it may. The truth is all I seek; and I think there is a very important truth to be deduced from the further investigation of this subject in its various relations—in short, a truth of paramount importance to all others; one which contains evidence of a fact in which we are more deeply concerned than in any other, and which, if well established, brings demonstration to confirm intuition and tradition. I am very well aware of all the difficulties in the way—difficulties internal and external,—many inherent to the subject itself, and others extraneous but inseparable from it; and I am very far from supposing that my book is to settle the question even with a single mind. All I hope or expect is to show that the question is not disposed of yet, either by the rationalists or the physiologists, and that it is still an open one; and all I desire is to arouse inquiry and curiosity, and that thus some mind, better qualified than mine to follow out the investigation, may be incited to undertake it.
Dr. Kerner mentions the case of a lady named Dillenius, who was awakened one night by her son, a child six years of age; her sister-in-law, who slept in the same room, also awoke at the same time, and all three saw Madame Dillenius enter the room, attired in a black dress, which she had lately bought. The sister said, “I see you double! you are in bed, and yet you are walking about the room.” They were both extremely alarmed, while the figure stood between the doors in a melancholy attitude with the head leaning on the hand. The child—who also saw it, but seems not to have been terrified—jumped out of bed, and running to the figure, put his hand through it as he attempted to push it, exclaiming, “Go away, you black woman.” The form, however, remained as before; and the child, becoming alarmed, sprung into bed again. Madame Dillenius expected that the appearance foreboded her own death; but that did not ensue. A serious accident immediately afterward occurred to her husband, and she fancied there might be some connection between the two events.
This is one of those cases which, from their extremely perplexing nature, have induced some psychologists to seek an explanation in the hypothesis that other spirits may for some purpose, or under certain conditions, assume the form of a person with a view to giving an intimation or impression, which the gulf separating the material from the spiritual world renders it difficult to convey. As regards such instances as that of Madame Dillenius, however, we are at a loss to discover any motive—unless, indeed, it be sympathy—for such an exertion of power, supposing it to be possessed. But in the famous case of Catherine of Russia, who is said, while lying in bed, to have been seen by the ladies to enter the throne-room, and, being informed of the circumstance, went herself and saw the figure seated on the throne, and bade her guards fire on it, we may conceive it possible that her guardian-spirit, if such she had, might adopt this mode of warning her to prepare for a change, which, after such a life as hers, we are entitled to conclude she was not very fit to encounter.
There are numerous examples of similar phenomena to be met with. Professor Stilling relates that he heard from the son of a Madame M?——, that his mother, having sent her maid up stairs on an errand, the woman came running down in a great fright, saying that her mistress was sitting above, in her arm-chair, looking precisely as she had left her below. The lady went up stairs, and saw herself as described by the woman, very shortly after which she died.
Dr. Werner relates that a jeweller at Ludwigsburg, named Ratzel, when in perfect health, one evening, on turning the corner of a street, met his own form, face to face. The figure seemed as real and lifelike as himself; and he was so close as to look into its very eyes. He was seized with terror, and it vanished. He related the circumstance to several people, and endeavored to laugh, but, nevertheless, it was evident he was painfully impressed with it. Shortly afterward, as he was passing through a forest, he fell in with some wood-cutters, who asked him to lend a hand to the ropes with which they were pulling down an oak-tree. He did so, and was killed by its fall.
Becker, professor of mathematics at Rostock, having fallen into argument with some friends regarding a disputed point of theology, on going to his library to fetch a book which he wished to refer to, saw himself sitting at the table in the seat he usually occupied. He approached the figure, which appeared to be reading, and, looking over its shoulder, he observed that the book open before it was a bible, and that, with one of the fingers of the right hand, it pointed to the passage—“Make ready thy house, for thou must die!” He returned to the company, and related what he had seen, and, in spite of all their arguments to the contrary, remained fully persuaded that his death was at hand. He took leave of his friends, and expired on the following day, at six o’clock in the evening. He had already attained a considerable age.
Those who would not believe in the appearance, said he had died of the fright; but, whether he did so or not, the circumstance is sufficiently remarkable: and, if this were a real, outstanding apparition, it would go strongly to support the hypothesis alluded to above, while, if it were a spectral illusion, it is certainly an infinitely strange one.
As I am aware how difficult it is, except where the appearance is seen by more persons than one, to distinguish cases of actual self-seeing from those of spectral illusion, I do not linger longer in this department; but, returning to the analogous subject of doppelgängers, I will relate a few curious instances of this kind of phenomena:—
Stilling relates that a government-officer, of the name of Triplin, in Weimar, on going to his office to fetch a paper of importance, saw his own likeness sitting there, with the deed before him. Alarmed, he returned home, and desired his maid to go there and fetch the paper she would find on the table. The maid saw the same form, and imagined that her master had gone by another road, and got there before her. His mind seems to have preceded his body.
The landrichter, or sheriff, F?——, in Frankfort, sent his secretary on an errand. Presently afterward, the secretary re-entered the room, and laid hold of a book. His master asked him what had brought him back, whereupon the figure vanished, and the book fell to the ground. It was a volume of Linnæus. In the evening, when the secretary returned, and was interrogated with regard to his expedition, he said that he had fallen into an eager dispute with an acquaintance, as he went along, about some botanical question, and had ardently wished he had had his Linnæus with him to refer to.
Dr. Werner relates that Professor Happach had an elderly maid-servant, who was in the habit of coming every morning to call him, and on entering the room, which he generally heard her do, she usually looked at a clock which stood under the mirror. One morning, she entered so softly, that, though he saw her, he did not hear her foot. She went, as was her custom, to the clock, and came to his bedside, but suddenly turned round and left the room. He called after her, but she not answering, he jumped out of bed and pursued her. He could not see her, however, till he reached her room, where he found her fast asleep in bed. Subsequently, the same thing occurred frequently with this woman.
An exactly parallel case was related to me, as occurring to himself, by a publisher in Edinburgh. His housekeeper was in the habit of calling him every morning. On one occasion, being perfectly awake, he saw her enter, walk to the window, and go out again without speaking. Being in the habit of fastening his door, he supposed he had omitted to do so; but presently afterward he heard her knocking to come in, and he found the door was still locked. She assured him she had not been there before. He was in perfectly good health at the time this happened.
Only a few nights since, a lady, with whom I am intimately acquainted, was in bed, and had not been to sleep, when she saw one of her daughters, who slept in an upper room, and who had retired to rest some time before, standing at the foot of her bed. “H?——,” she said, “what is the matter? what are you come for?” The daughter did not answer, but moved away. The mother jumped out of bed, but not seeing her, got in again: but the figure was still there. Perfectly satisfied it was really her daughter, she spoke to her, asking if anything had happened; but again the figure moved silently away, and again the mother jumped out of bed, and actually went part of the way up stairs: and this occurred a third time! The daughter was during the whole of this time asleep in her bed, and the lady herself is quite in her usual state of health—not robust, but not by any means sickly, nor in the slightest degree hysterical or nervous; yet she is perfectly convinced that she saw the figure of her daughter on that occasion, though quite unable to account for the circumstance. Probably the daughter was dreaming of the mother.
Edward Stern, author of some German works, had a friend who was frequently seen out of the body, as the Germans term it; and the father of that person was so much the subject of this phenomenon, that he was frequently observed to enter his house while he was yet working in the fields! His wife used to say to him, “Why, papa, you came home before;” and he would answer, “I dare say, I was so anxious to get away earlier, but it was impossible!”
The cook in a convent of nuns, at Ebersdorf, was frequently seen picking herbs in the garden, when she was in the kitchen and much in need of them.
A Danish physician, whose name Dr. Werner does not mention, is said to have been frequently seen entering a patient’s room, and on being spoken to, the figure would disappear, with a sigh. This used to occur when he had made an appointment which he was prevented keeping, and was rendered uneasy by the failure. The hearing of it, however, occasioned him such an unpleasant sensation, that he requested his patients never to tell him when it happened.
A president of the supreme court, in Ulm, named Pfizer, attests the truth of the following case: A gentleman, holding an official situation, had a son at Göttingen, who wrote home to his father, requesting him to send him, without delay, a certain book, which he required to aid him in preparing a dissertation he was engaged in. The father answered that he had sought but could not find the work in question. Shortly afterward, the latter had been taking a book from his shelves, when, on turning round, he beheld, to his amazement, his son just in the act of stretching up his hand toward one on a high shelf in another part of the room. “Hallo!” he exclaimed, supposing it to be the young man himself, but the figure disappeared; and, on examining the shelf, the father found there the book that was required, which he immediately forwarded to Göttingen; but before it could arrive there, he received a letter from his son, describing the exact spot where it was to be found.
A case of what is called spectral illusion is mentioned by Dr. Paterson, which appears to me to belong to the class of phenomena I am treating of. One Sunday evening, Miss N?—— was left at home, the sole inmate of the house, not being permitted to accompany her family to church on account of her delicate state of health. Her father was an infirm old man, who seldom went from home, and she was not aware whether, on this occasion, he had gone out with the rest or not. By-and-by, there came on a severe storm of thunder, lightning, and rain, and Miss N?—— is described as becoming very uneasy about her father. Under the influence of this feeling, Dr. Paterson says she went into the back room, where he usually sat, and there saw him in his arm-chair. Not doubting but it was himself, she advanced and laid her hand upon his shoulder, but her hand encountered vacancy; and, alarmed, she retired. As she quitted the room, however, she looked back, and there still sat the figure. Not being a believer in what is called the “supernatural,” Miss N?—— resolved to overcome her apprehensions, and return into the room, which she did, and saw the figure as before. For the space of fully half an hour she went in and out of the room in this manner, before it disappeared. She did not see it vanish, but the fifth time she returned, it was gone.
Dr. Paterson vouches for the truth of this story, and no doubt of its being a mere illusion occurs to him, though the lady had never before or since, as she assured him, been troubled with the malady. It seems to me much more likely that, when the storm came on, the thoughts of the old man would be intensely drawn homeward: he would naturally wish himself in his comfortable arm-chair, and, knowing his young daughter to be alone, he would inevitably feel some anxiety about her too. There was a mutual projection of their spirits toward each other; and the one that was most easily freed from its bonds, was seen where in the spirit it actually was; for, as I have said above, a spirit out of the flesh, to whom space is annihilated, must be where its thoughts and affections are, for its thoughts and affections are itself.
I observe that Sir David Brewster and others, who have written on this subject, and who represent all these phenomena as images projected on the retina from the brain, dwell much on the fact that they are seen alike, whether the eye be closed or open. There are, however, two answers to be made to this argument: first, that even if it were so, the proof would not be decisive, since it is generally with closed eyes that somnambulic persons see, whether natural somnambules or magnetic patients; and, secondly, I find in some instances, which appear to me to be genuine cases of an objective appearance, that where the experiment has been tried, the figure is not seen when the eyes are closed.
The author of a work entitled “An Inquiry into the Nature of Ghosts,” who adopts the illusion theory, relates the following story, as one he can vouch for, though not permitted to give the names of the parties:—
“Miss ——, at the age of seven years, being in a field not far from her father’s house, in the parish of Kirklinton, in Cumberland, saw what she thought was her father in the field, at a time that he was in bed, from which he had not been removed for a considerable period. There were in the field also, at the same moment, George Little, and John, his fellow-servant. One of these cried out, ‘Go to your father, miss!’ She turned round, and the figure had disappeared. On returning home, she said, ‘Where is my father?’ The mother answered, ‘In bed, to be sure, child!’—out of which he had not been.”
I quote this case, because the figure was seen by two persons. I could mention several similar instances, but when only seen by one, they are, of course, open to another explanation.
Goethe (whose family, by-the-way, were ghost-seers) relates that as he was once in an uneasy state of mind, riding along the footpath toward Drusenheim, he saw, “not with the eyes of his body, but with those of his spirit,” himself on horseback coming toward him, in a dress that he then did not possess. It was gray, and trimmed with gold. The figure disappeared; but eight years afterward he found himself, quite accidentally, on that spot, on horseback, and in precisely that attire. This seems to have been a case of second-sight.
The story of Byron’s being seen in London when he was lying in a fever at Patras, is well known; but may possibly have arisen from some extraordinary personal resemblance, though so firm was the conviction of its being his actual self, that a bet of a hundred guineas was offered on it.
Some time ago, the “Dublin University Magazine” related a case—I know not on what authority—as having occurred at Rome, to the effect that a gentleman had, one night on going home to his lodging, thrown his servant into great amazement, the man exclaiming, “Good Lord, sir, you came home before!” He declared that he had let his master into the house, attended him up stairs, and, I think, undressed him, and seen him get into bed. When they went to the room, they found no clothes; but the bed appeared to have been lain in, and there was a strange mark upon the ceiling, as if from the passage of an electrical fluid. The only thing the young man could remember, whereby to account for this extraordinary circumstance, was, that while abroad, and in company, he had been overcome with ennui, fallen into a deep reverie, and had for a time forgotten that he was not at home.
When I read this story, though I have learned from experience to be very cautious how I pronounce that impossible which I know nothing about, I confess it somewhat exceeded my receptive capacity, but I have since heard of a similar instance, so well authenticated, that my incredulity is shaken.
Dr. Kerner relates that a canon of a catholic cathedral, of somewhat dissipated habits, on coming home one evening, saw a light in his bed-room. When the maid opened the door, she started back with surprise, while he inquired why she had left a candle burning up stairs; upon which she declared that he had come home just before, and gone to his room, and she had been wondering at his unusual silence. On ascending to his chamber, he saw himself sitting in the arm-chair. The figure rose, passed him, and went out at the room-door. He was extremely alarmed, expecting his death was at hand. He, however, lived many years afterward, but the influence on his moral character was very beneficial.
Not long since, a professor, I think of theology, at a college at Berlin, addressed his class, saying, that, instead of his usual lecture, he should relate to them a circumstance which, the preceding evening, had occurred to himself, believing the effects would be no less salutary.
He then told them that, as he was going home the last evening, he had seen his own imago, or double, on the other side of the street. He looked away, and tried to avoid it, but, finding it still accompanied him, he took a short cut home, in hopes of getting rid of it, wherein he succeeded, till he came opposite his own house, when he saw it at the door.
It rang, the maid opened, it entered, she handed it a candle, and, as the professor stood in amazement, on the other side of the street, he saw the light passing the windows, as it wound its way up to his own chamber. He then crossed over and rang; the servant was naturally dreadfully alarmed on seeing him, but, without waiting to explain, he ascended the stairs. Just as he reached his own chamber, he heard a loud crash, and, on opening the door, they found no one there, but the ceiling had fallen in, and his life was thus saved. The servant corroborated this statement to the students; and a minister, now attached to one of the Scotch churches, was present when the professor told his tale. Without admitting the doctrine of protecting spirits, it is difficult to account for these latter circumstances.
A very interesting case of an apparent friendly intervention occurred to the celebrated Dr. A?—— T?——, of Edinburgh. He was sitting up late one night, reading in his study, when he heard a foot in the passage, and knowing the family were, or ought to be, all in bed, he rose and looked out to ascertain who it was, but, seeing nobody, he sat down again. Presently, the sound recurred, and he was sure there was somebody, though he could not see him. The foot, however, evidently ascended the stairs, and he followed it, till it led him to the nursery-door, which he opened, and found the furniture was on fire; and thus, but for this kind office of his good angel, his children would have been burned in their beds.
The most extraordinary history of this sort, however, with which I am acquainted, is the following, the facts of which are perfectly authentic:—
Some seventy or eighty years since, the apprentice, or assistant, of a respectable surgeon in Glasgow, was known to have had an illicit connection with a servant-girl, who somewhat suddenly disappeared. No suspicion, however, seems to have been entertained of foul play. It appears rather to have been supposed that she had retired for the purpose of being confined, and, consequently, no inquiries were made about her.
Glasgow was, at that period, a very different place to what it is at present, in more respects than one; and, among its peculiarities, was the extraordinary strictness with which the observance of the sabbath was enforced, insomuch, that nobody was permitted to show themselves in the streets or public walks during the hours dedicated to the church services, and there were actually inspectors appointed to see that this regulation was observed, and to take down the names of defaulters.
At one extremity of the city, there is some open ground, of rather considerable extent, on the north side of the river, called “The Green,” where people sometimes resort for air and exercise; and where lovers not unfrequently retire to enjoy as much solitude as the proximity to so large a town can afford.
One Sunday morning, the inspectors of public piety above alluded to having traversed the city, and extended their perquisitions as far as the lower extremity of the Green, where it was bounded by a wall, observed a young man lying on the grass, whom they immediately recognised to be the surgeon’s assistant. They, of course, inquired why he was not at church, and proceeded to register his name in their books, but, instead of attempting to make any excuse for his offence, he only rose from the ground, saying, “I am a miserable man; look in the water!” He then immediately crossed a stile, which divided the wall, and led to a path extending along the side of the river toward the Rutherglen road. They saw him cross the stile, but, not comprehending the significance of his words, instead of observing him further, they naturally directed their attention to the water, where they presently perceived the body of a woman. Having with some difficulty dragged it ashore, they immediately proceeded to carry it into the town, assisted by several other persons, who by this time had joined them. It was now about one o’clock, and, as they passed through the streets, they were obstructed by the congregation that was issuing from one of the principal places of worship; and, as they stood up for a moment, to let them pass, they saw the surgeon’s assistant issue from the church door. As it was quite possible for him to have gone round some other way, and got there before them, they were not much surprised. He did not approach them, but mingled with the crowd, while they proceeded on their way.
On examination, the woman proved to be the missing servant-girl. She was pregnant, and had evidently been murdered with a surgeon’s instrument, which was found entangled among her clothes. Upon this, in consequence of his known connection with her, and his implied self-accusation to the inspectors, the young man was apprehended on suspicion of being the guilty party, and tried upon the circuit. He was the last person seen in her company, immediately previous to her disappearance; and there was, altogether, such strong presumptive evidence against him, as corroborated by what occurred on the green would have justified a verdict of guilty. But, strange to say, this last most important item in the evidence failed, and he established an incontrovertible alibi; it being proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that he had been in church from the beginning of the service to the end of it. He was, therefore, acquitted; while the public were left in the greatest perplexity, to account as they could for this extraordinary discrepancy. The young man was well known to the inspectors, and it was in broad daylight that they had met him and placed his name in their books. Neither, it must be remembered, were they seeking for him, nor thinking of him, nor of the woman, about whom there existed neither curiosity nor suspicion. Least of all, would they have sought her where she was, but for the hint given to them.
The interest excited, at the time, was very great; but no natural explanation of the mystery has ever been suggested.
