Chapter XIII

SOME LESS COMMON TYPES OF TELEPATHIC HALLUCINATION.

The hallucinations so far dealt with belong to classes numerically strong, and the narratives quoted could be paralleled over and over again from our records by other narratives equally well attested. And this fact furnishes in itself a strong presumption of the substantial accuracy of the accounts given. For as there is little in the kind of incident described--the bare occurrence of a hallucination coincidentally with an external event or with another hallucination--to suggest the work of the imagination, there is little warrant for ascribing this consensus of testimony among the narratives to any other cause than a common foundation in fact. The episodes consist, indeed, of such simple elements as to leave small room for embellishment. Moreover, by those who accept the theory of telepathy an additional argument for the authenticity of these narratives may be found in the consideration that in that theory they receive a simple and sufficient explanation. But we meet occasionally with accounts of hallucinatory experiences which do not fall readily under any of the comparatively simple categories already discussed. The mere difficulty of explaining the genesis of hallucinations of such aberrant types would not, in the present stage of our knowledge, be an argument against their authenticity. But it serves to rob them of the support which they might otherwise have received from their affiliation with better known forms of hallucination; whilst the recent first-hand evidence actually available is not sufficient in itself to substantiate them. Whilst, therefore, such cases should be duly recorded and may legitimately be discussed, it seems best to await the receipt of further evidence before a final judgment is passed upon them. But in some instances there is a further reason why the question should at most be held unproven. Some of the features which distinguish these cases from ordinary telepathic hallucinations, whilst occurring rarely in well-attested recent narratives, are to be found more commonly in remote, uncorroborated, and traditional stories. This circumstance is, of course, a strong argument against their genuineness, since it proves that the imagination tends to create such features. But it is not a conclusive argument. The imagination may itself have been inspired in the first instance by fact; it may have copied, not bettered, nature. That the legendary epics of the older world have invented winged dragons is clearly not an argument that can weigh against positive evidence for the existence in a still more remote past of pterodactyls.

_Reciprocal Cases._

These considerations apply with full force to the first of the dubious types here to be considered. In publishing seven first-hand "reciprocal" cases in 1886 (_Phantasms_, vol. ii. p. 167) Mr. Gurney pointed out that the evidence then available was "so small that the genuineness of the type might fairly be called in question." Still, regarding it as probably genuine, he anticipated that we should ultimately obtain more well-attested specimens of it. In the eight years which have elapsed since Mr. Gurney wrote this anticipation has met with only partial fulfilment. We have met with but two recent well-attested cases which clearly fall under the same category as those already given. One of these cases has already been quoted (No. 63), and was indeed included in the supplementary chapter of _Phantasms of the Living_; the other is as follows:--

No. 88.--From the REV. C. L. EVANS.

"FORTON, GARSTANG.
(_Received on the_ 18_th of September_ 1889.)

"Two years ago I had occasion to undergo a course of magnetism,
under the treatment of Miss ----. I was under her treatment for six
weeks, and derived considerable benefit from her treatment. A warm
friendship sprang up between us, as she had wonderfully improved my
sight. I went up to St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, at the commencement of
the October term, as my eyes were so much stronger. One afternoon,
as I had just come in from the river, being rather tired, I sat
down for a minute before I changed, when, to my great surprise, the
door opened, and Miss ---- appeared to walk in.

"She was looking rather pale at the time, and looked intently
at me for about a minute, then left the room as slowly as she
had walked in. I was much alarmed, as I fancied that something
must have happened to her, and I immediately sat down and wrote
off two letters, one to Miss ----, asking if she was well, and
another to my mother, telling her of the strange occurrence. The
next day I had back the two replies. My mother said that on that
very afternoon she had called on Miss ----, and naturally they
had been discussing my case. She said that my description of Miss
----'s dress, etc., was perfectly accurate. I then read Miss ----'s
note. She stated that my mother had called, and had left at about
half-past four, she then had lain down for a few minutes, and was
thinking and wishing to see me. She had a distinct impression that
she saw me during this sleep, or trance, but when she awoke the
impression was not very vivid. The time exactly coincided, and she
said that my description of her was very accurate. At the time that
she appeared to me I was not thinking in the least of her.

"CHARLES LLOYD EVANS."

I called on Mr. Evans on the 20th April 1892, and had a long conversation with him. The following notes of my interview were made at the time and written out a few days later:--

"The occurrence took place in November 1887. It would be about 4.15
P.M. He was resting in his chair--in boating clothes--with the
door ajar. Heard a knock or sound as of some one entering; turned
round and saw Miss ---- come into the room and walk towards him.
She was dressed in red bodice and dark silk skirt (a not unfamiliar
dress), but with a silver filigree cross hanging from a chain round
her neck which he had never seen before. Learnt afterwards that the
cross had been given by General ---- only a few days before the
incident.

"The figure looked him straight in the face, then seemed to fade
away bit by bit.

"He was himself perfectly well and not a bit sleepy.

"He has had no other hallucinations. His age at the time was
twenty."

Mr. Evans's mother writes:--

"_April_ 27_th_, 1892.

"In reply to the questions you asked me about the apparition
of Miss ---- to my son, when at Oxford, I can fully verify his
statement. He wrote to me the same afternoon, begging me to call
upon Miss ---- and see if she was ill, detailing me the account
of what he had seen, and also describing her dress minutely and
the cross she was wearing. I called upon Miss ---- the following
day, and read her my son's letter, giving the hour at which she
had appeared to him. She told me that she had not been feeling
well, and was lying down on the couch thinking, too, of my son,
and that she went off into a sort of trance, and she saw him
distinctly looking at her and he was very pale. This made a deep
impression upon me, for I must own myself that I hardly believed
it to be possible. However, Miss ---- told me that my son had at
once written to her, fearing that she must be ill, and told her
the circumstances under which she appeared to him. When I saw Miss
---- she was then wearing the same dress and filigree cross which
Charlie had described to me in his letter, and which he had never
seen her wearing before. I fear that I cannot now find my son's
letter, but should I come across it I will forward it to you. Miss
----, however, can corroborate all that I have said.

"MARY E. EVANS."

Afterwards I saw Miss ----. The following, notes of the interview were made the same day:--

"_July_ 17_th_, 1892.

"Her account of the matter is that Mrs. Evans (percipient's mother)
called on her on the afternoon of the vision and talked much about
her son. After Mrs. Evans left--probably about 5.30 P.M.--Miss
----, as usual, lay down to sleep for a few minutes; woke about 6
P.M. with the recollection of having seen Mr. C. L. Evans. Can
recall no details of appearance--merely the recollection of having
been in the same room with him.

"The next day she received a letter from Mr. C. L. Evans telling of
his vision, and on the same day another visit from his mother.

"Miss ---- was wearing the dress and filigree cross described. The
cross, as stated, had been given to her only a few days before.

"Miss ---- has kept Mr. Evans's letter.[128] She has had many
visions and dreams in her life, but she cannot recall another
relating to Mr. Evans.

"She is not sure of the time at which her vision or dream occurred.
It may have been earlier than 6 P.M., her hours being very
irregular.

"She had compared notes with Mr. Evans, and was under the
impression that their experiences coincided. But I think that her
first statement--6 P.M.--is probably correct. If so, her dream
would have come one and a half to two hours after Mr. Evans's
vision."

If the above account correctly describes what took place--and I know of no ground for doubting either the accuracy or the good faith of the narrators--it seems clear either that Mr. Evans and Miss ---- reciprocally affected each other, or that Mr. Evans, whilst impressing Miss ---- with the idea of his presence, was able himself to attain to a supernormal perception of her surroundings. For the latter explanation, however, we have no support in analogy, and it seems less unwarrantable provisionally to regard this case and others like it as being reciprocally telepathic. It should, perhaps, be pointed out, as bearing upon the extreme rarity of cases of the kind, that there may be instances of reciprocal affection of which, from the very nature of the case, we could not hope to obtain evidence. It is conceivable, for instance, that in the ordinary case of an apparition at death, the dying man may himself have been a percipient as well as an agent, since circumstances rarely permit of his side of the experience being recorded. It is conceivable also that in cases of collective hallucination the effect may really be a reciprocal one, the two persons concerned simultaneously affecting and being affected by each other, until the force so generated explodes into hallucination. But in the present state of our knowledge it would be premature to speculate further.

_A Misinterpreted Message._

The next case also seems susceptible of more than one explanation. The account which follows was written in 1890.

No. 89.--From MISS C. L. HAWKINS-DEMPSTER, 24 Portman Square, W.

"I ran downstairs and entered the drawing-room at 7.30 P.M.,
believing I had kept my two sisters waiting for dinner. They had
gone to dinner, the room was empty. Behind a long sofa I saw Mr.
H. standing. He moved three steps nearer. I heard nothing. I was
not at all afraid or surprised, only felt concern as [to] what he
wanted, as he was in South America. I learnt next morning that at
that moment his mother was breathing her last. I went and arranged
her for burial, my picture still hanging above the bed, between the
portraits of her two absent sons.

"I was in the habit of hearing often from [Mr. H.], and was not at
that moment anxious about Mrs. H.'s health, though she was aged.
I had had twenty-five days before the grief of losing an only
brother. No other persons were present at the time."[129]

In answer to further inquiries, we learnt from Miss Hawkins-Dempster that the above incident occurred on New Year's Eve, 1876-77; the room was lighted by "one bright lamp and a fire," and the figure did not seem to go away, she merely "ceased to see it." She used to see Mrs. H. often, and was in no anxiety as to her health at the time. Mrs. H. was very old, but not definitely ill. Miss Hawkins-Dempster corrected her first statement as to the exactness of the coincidence by informing us that Mrs. H. died in the morning of the same day on which the apparition was seen.

Miss Hawkins-Dempster mentioned what she had seen to her sister, who thus corroborates:--

"_July_ 15_th_, 1892.

"I heard of my sister Miss C. L. Hawkins-Dempster's vision of Mr.
H. in the drawing-room at 7.30 P.M. on New Year's Eve, 1876-77,
immediately after it happened, and before hearing that Mrs. H. died
the same day, the news of which reached us later that evening.

"H. H. DEMPSTER."

We have verified the date of death at Somerset House.

Miss Hawkins-Dempster has had one other experience--an apparition seen also by her sister and their governess. They were children at the time, aged about fourteen and twelve respectively.

Mr. Myers had an interview with the Misses Hawkins-Dempster on July 16th, 1892, and writes as follows the next day:--

"Miss C. Hawkins-Dempster's veridical experience is well remembered
by both sisters. The decedent was a very old lady, who was on very
intimate terms with them, and had special reasons for thinking of
Miss C. Hawkins-Dempster in connection with the son whose figure
appeared. He was at the other side of the world, and most certainly
had not heard of his mother's death at the time.

"The figure was absolutely life-like. Miss Hawkins-Dempster noticed
the slight cast of the eye and the delicate hands. The figure
rested one hand on the back of a chair and held the other out. Miss
Hawkins-Dempster called out, 'What can I do for you?' forgetting
for the moment the impossibility that it could be the real man.
Then she simply ceased to see the figure.

"She was in good health at the time, and her thoughts were occupied
with business matters."

We have a parallel case amongst our records. Miss V. saw in church the hallucinatory figure of an acquaintance looking at her, and subsequently learned that he was at the time at the deathbed of his mother. A few other cases are given in _Phantasms of the Living_. I should be disposed to explain these narratives as instances of the misinterpretation of a telepathic message. I should conjecture, that is, that the impulse received from the dying woman, instead of giving rise, as in an ordinary case, to a hallucination of herself, called up in the percipient's mind, whether through the operation of associated ideas or from some other cause, the image of a near relative. Indeed, seeing how potent is the influence of associated ideas, it is perhaps a matter for wonder that such miscarriages do not more often occur. It should be stated that, beyond their rarity, there is no special reason to mistrust stories of this type. Their distinguishing feature is not apparently of a kind which appeals readily to the imagination. Indeed, by most persons the want of precise correspondence would probably be regarded as a serious blemish in the story. Certainly cases of the kind occur rarely, if at all, among second-hand and traditional narratives.

_Heteroplastic Hallucinations._

But another possible explanation of the incident suggests itself. It has already been conjectured that in some cases of hallucination or other impression, the percipient's vision may have originated not in the mind of the person primarily concerned, but in that of some bystander.[130] Conversely, the image seen in the narrative just cited may have been flashed directly from the dying woman's mind. In the case which follows a picture of the past preserved in the memory of one of two friends appears to have been spontaneously transferred to the mind of the other.

The case was sent to Dr. Hodgson on the 18th May 1888, and was published in the _Arena_ for February 1889.

No. 90.--From MRS. G----.

"... For nearly two weeks I have had a lady friend visiting us from
Chicago, and last Sunday we tried the cards and in every instance I
told the colour and kind; but only two or three times was enabled
to give the exact number....

"I must write you of something that occurred last night. After
this lady, whom I have mentioned above, had retired, and almost
immediately after we had extinguished the light, there suddenly
appeared before me a beautiful lawn and coming toward me a chubby,
yellow-haired little boy, and by his side a brown dog which closely
resembled a fox. The dog had on a brass collar and the child's
hand was under the collar just as if he was leading or pulling the
dog. The vision was like a flash, came and went in an instant. I
immediately told my friend, and she said, 'Do you know where there
are any matches?' and began to hurriedly clamber out of bed. I
struck a light, she plunged into her trunk, brought out a book, and
pasted in the front was a picture of her little boy and his dog.
They were not in the same position that I saw them, but the dog
looked exceedingly familiar. Her little boy passed into the beyond
about four years ago...."

Mrs. F. corroborates as follows:--

"_May_ 18_th_, 1888.

"I wish to corroborate the statements of Mrs. N. G. relative to ...
and her wonderful vision of my little boy, and my old home. Mrs.
G. never saw the place, or the little child, and never even heard
of the peculiar-looking dog, which was my little son's constant
companion out of doors. She never saw the photograph, which was
pasted in the back of my Bible and packed away.

"(Signed) I. F."

In this case, it will be noted, the vision was the direct sequel of some partially successful experiments in thought-transference; and the transferred impression fell short of actual hallucination. In the following case there is no evidence of any special rapport between the percipient and the person who, on this hypothesis, acted as the agent; and the percipient's impression took the form of a completely externalised hallucination.

No. 91.--From FRANCES REDDELL.

"ANTONY, TORPOINT,
_December_ 14_th_, 1882.

"Helen Alexander (maid to Lady Waldegrave) was lying here very
ill with typhoid fever, and was attended by me. I was standing
at the table by her bedside, pouring out her medicine, at about
four o'clock in the morning of the 4th October 1880. I heard
the call-bell ring (this had been heard twice before during the
night in that same week), and was attracted by the door of the
room opening, and by seeing a person entering the room whom I
instantly felt to be the mother of the sick woman. She had a brass
candlestick in her hand, a red shawl over her shoulders, and a
flannel petticoat on which had a hole in the front. I looked at
her as much as to say, 'I am glad you have come,' but the woman
looked at me sternly, as much as to say, 'Why wasn't I sent for
before?' I gave the medicine to Helen Alexander, and then turned
round to speak to the vision, but no one was there. She had gone.
She was a short, dark person, and very stout. At about six o'clock
that morning Helen Alexander died. Two days after, her parents and
a sister came to Antony, and arrived between one and two o'clock
in the morning; I and another maid let them in, and it gave me a
great turn when I saw the living likeness of the vision I had seen
two nights before. I told the sister about the vision, and she said
that the description of the dress exactly answered to her mother's,
and that they had brass candlesticks at home exactly like the one
described. There was not the slightest resemblance between the
mother and daughter.

"FRANCES REDDELL.

Frances Reddell fortunately described her vision to her mistress, Mrs. Pole-Carew, of Antony, Torpoint, Devonport, within a few hours of its occurrence, and before her encounter with the original. Mrs. Pole-Carew writes as follows:--

"31_st December_ 1883.

"In October 1880, Lord and Lady Waldegrave came with their Scotch
maid, Helen Alexander, to stay with us. [The account then describes
how Helen was discovered to have caught typhoid fever, and pending
the arrival of a regular nurse, was nursed for several days by
Frances Reddell. On the Sunday week, Mrs. Pole-Carew continues],
I allowed Reddell to sit up with Helen again that night, to give
her the medicine and food, which were to be taken constantly. At
about 4.30 that night, or rather Monday morning, Reddell looked
at her watch, poured out the medicine, and was bending over the
bed to give it to Helen when the call-bell in the passage rang.
She said to herself, 'There's that tiresome bell with the wire
caught again.' (It seems it did occasionally ring of itself in
this manner.) At that moment, however, she heard the door open,
and looking round, saw a very stout old woman walk in. She was
dressed in a nightgown and red flannel petticoat, and carried an
old-fashioned brass candlestick in her hand. The petticoat had a
hole rubbed in it. She walked into the room and appeared to be
going towards the dressing-table to put her candle down. She was a
perfect stranger to Reddell, who, however, merely thought, 'This
is her mother come to see after her,' and she felt quite glad it
was so, accepting the idea without reasoning upon it, as one would
in a dream. She thought the mother looked annoyed, possibly at not
having been sent for before. She then gave Helen the medicine, and
turning round, found that the apparition had disappeared, and that
the door was shut. A great change, meanwhile, had taken place in
Helen, and Reddell fetched me, who sent off for the doctor, and
meanwhile applied hot poultices, etc., but Helen died a little
before the doctor came. She was quite conscious up to about
half-an-hour before she died, when she seemed to be going to sleep.

"During the early days of her illness Helen had written to a
sister, mentioning her being unwell, but making nothing of it, and
as she never mentioned any one but this sister, it was supposed by
the household, to whom she was a perfect stranger, that she had no
other relation alive. Reddell was always offering to write for her,
but she always declined, saying there was no need, she would write
herself in a day or two. No one at home, therefore, knew anything
of her being so ill, and it is, therefore, remarkable that her
mother, a far from nervous person, should have said that evening
going up to bed, 'I am sure Helen is very ill.'

"Reddell told me and my daughter of the apparition, about an hour
after Helen's death, prefacing with, 'I am not superstitious
or nervous, and I wasn't the least frightened, but her mother
came last night,' and she then told the story, giving a careful
description of the figure she had seen. The relations were asked
to come to the funeral, and the father, mother, and sister came,
and in the mother Reddell recognised the apparition, as I did
also, for Reddell's description had been most accurate, even to
the expression, which she had ascribed to annoyance, but which
was due to deafness. It was judged best not to speak about it to
the mother, but Reddell told the sister, who said the description
of the figure corresponded exactly with the probable appearance
of her mother if roused in the night; that they had exactly such
a candlestick at home, and that there was a hole in her mother's
petticoat produced by the way she always wore it. It seems curious
that neither Helen nor her mother appeared to be aware of the
visit. Neither of them, at any rate, ever spoke of having seen the
other, nor even of having dreamt of having done so.

"F. A. POLE-CAREW."

[Frances Reddell states that she has never had any hallucination,
or any odd experience of any kind, except on this one occasion.
The Hon. Mrs. Lyttelton, of Selwyn College, Cambridge, who knows
her, tells us that "she appears to be a most matter-of-fact person,
and was apparently most impressed by the fact that she saw a hole
in the mother's flannel petticoat, made by the busk of her stays,
reproduced in the apparition."]

The simplest explanation of this incident, and that which involves the least departure from known forms of telepathy, is that the figure seen by Frances Reddell was due to thought-transference from the mind of the dying girl. And this explanation has some direct evidence in its favour. There is, of course, abundant proof of the transference from agent to percipient of a real or imaginary scene. (See the cases described in Chapters II., III., XIV., and XV.) But in these cases the percipient's impressions appear rarely to have risen to the level of hallucination, and in the absence of direct evidence it would not perhaps have been safe to assume that a detailed impression, such as a scene or a human figure, transferred from another mind, would be capable of taking complete sensory embodiment in the mind of the percipient. The frequency, however, of collective hallucinations of an apparently casual character seems to require such an assumption (see _ante_, p. 273). Moreover, a case has been recorded (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. vi. pp. 434, 435) in which a hypnotically induced hallucination appears to have been reproduced in another hypnotised subject by telepathic suggestion from the original percipient. In the experiments recorded by Dr. Gibotteau (pp. 368, 369) the ideas mentally suggested by him appear in some cases to have assumed a hallucinatory form in the subject; and, finally, Wesermann (Chapter X., p. 233), in his fifth experiment succeeded in calling up a recognisable hallucination of a lady personally unknown to the percipients. We have, therefore, experimental parallels for our suggested interpretation of Frances Reddell's experience; and when once the possibility of thought-transference in this form is recognised, many so-called "ghosts" or phantasms of the dead find a simple and satisfactory explanation. The following case may be instanced:--

No. 92.--From MR. JOHN E. HUSBANDS, Melbourne House, Town Hall Square, Grimsby.

"_September_ 15_th_, 1886.

"The facts are simply these. I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira
in January 1885. It was a bright moonlight night. The windows
were open and the blinds up. I felt some one was in my room. On
opening my eyes, I saw a young fellow about twenty-five, dressed
in flannels, standing at the side of my bed and pointing with the
first finger of his right hand to the place I was lying in. I
lay for some seconds to convince myself of some one being really
there. I then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so
plainly that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me
some days after. I asked him what he wanted; he did not speak, but
his eyes and hand seemed to tell me I was in his place. As he did
not answer, I struck out at him with my fist as I sat up, but did
not reach him, and as I was going to spring out of bed he slowly
vanished through the door, which was shut, keeping his eyes upon me
all the time.

"Upon inquiry I found that the young fellow who appeared to me died
in that room I was occupying.

"If I can tell you anything more I shall be glad to, if it
interests you.

"JOHN E. HUSBANDS."

The following letters are from Miss Falkner, of Church Terrace, Wisbech, who was resident at the hotel when the above incident happened:--

"_October_ 8_th_, 1886.

"The figure that Mr. Husbands saw while in Madeira was that of a
young fellow who died unexpectedly months previously, in the room
which Mr. Husbands was occupying. Curiously enough, Mr. H. had
never heard of him or his death. He told me the story the morning
after he had seen the figure, and I recognised the young fellow
from the description. It impressed me very much, but I did not
mention it to him or any one. I loitered about until I heard Mr.
Husbands tell the same tale to my brother; we left Mr. H. and said
simultaneously, 'He has seen Mr. D.'

"No more was said on the subject for days; then I abruptly showed
the photograph.

"Mr. Husbands said at once, 'This is the young fellow who appeared
to me the other night, but he was dressed differently'--describing
a dress he often wore--'cricket suit (or tennis) fastened at the
neck with sailor knot.' I must say that Mr. Husbands is a most
practical man, and the very last one would expect 'a spirit' to
visit.

"K. FALKNER."

"_October_ 20_th_, 1886.

"I enclose you photograph and an extract from my sister-in-law's
letter, which I received this morning, as it will verify my
statement. Mr. Husbands saw the figure either the 3rd or 4th of
February 1885.

"The people who had occupied the rooms had never told us if they
had seen anything, so we may conclude they had not.

"K. FALKNER."

The following is Miss Falkner's copy of the passage in the letter:--

"You will see at back of Mr. du F----'s photo the date of his
decease [January 29th, 1884]; and if you recollect 'the Motta
Marques' had his rooms from the February till the May or June of
1884, then Major Money at the commencement of 1885 season. Mr.
Husbands had to take the room on February 2nd, 1885, as his was
wanted.

"I am clear on all this, and remember his telling me the incident
when he came to see my baby."

At a personal interview Mr. Gurney learnt that Mr. Husbands had never had any other hallucination of the senses. (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. v. p. 416.)

It is, of course, conceivable that before his experience Mr. Husbands may have heard of the death of Mr. D. and have forgotten the circumstance. But this supposition will hardly account for the recognition of the photograph. In any case, however, there can be no justification for invoking other than terrestrial agencies to explain the vision. Until such agencies are proved inadequate to account for the facts a narrative of this kind can scarcely be held to raise a presumption, much less to afford a proof, of the action of the dead. Miss Falkner and her brother had known the dead man; no fact about him was communicated which was not within their knowledge; and there is nothing to negative the supposition that some echo of their thoughts or dreams may have given rise to the vision. A very similar case is quoted in the same volume (_Proc_., vol. v. p. 418). Mr. D. M. Tyre, of St. Andrews Road, Pollokshields, Glasgow, stayed for some time in a lonely house in Dumbartonshire. On several occasions during their occupancy of the house Miss L. Tyre saw the figure of an old woman lying on the bed in the kitchen. The figure lay with the face turned to the wall, and the legs drawn up as if from cold. On her head was a "sow-backed mutch," _i.e._, a white frilled cap of a peculiar shape common in the Highlands. The others who were present did not see the figure. It was subsequently ascertained from a neighbour that the description given correctly represented the dress and attitude of a former occupant of the house, who had died there some years before under painful circumstances. M. Richet (_Proc._, vol. v. p. 148) gives an account of some spiritualist séances at which the promise was given that his grandfather, M. Charles Renouard, would appear. A figure resembling M. Charles Renouard was actually seen some days later, not by any of those present at the séance, but by an English lady staying in the house, who was believed to know nothing of the expected apparition.

A similar explanation may perhaps apply to the following account, which was communicated verbally to Mr. Myers on the 12th October 1888 by the percipient, Mr. J., a gentleman well known in the scientific world. Mr. Myers explains that the account which follows was written out by him from his notes of the conversation, and was subsequently revised and corrected by Mr. J. himself.

No. 93.--From MR. J.

"In 1880 I succeeded a Mr. Q. as librarian of the X. Library. I
had never seen Mr. Q., nor any photograph or likeness of him,
when the following incidents occurred. I may, of course, have
heard the library assistants describe his appearance, though I
have no recollection of this. I was sitting alone in the library
one evening late in March 1884, finishing some work after hours,
when it suddenly occurred to me that I should miss the last train
to H., where I was then living, if I did not make haste. It was
then 10.55, and the last train left X. at 11.5. I gathered up some
books in one hand, took the lamp in the other, and prepared to
leave the librarian's room, which communicated by a passage with
the main room of the library. As my lamp illumined this passage, I
saw apparently at the further end of it a man's face. I instantly
thought a thief had got into the library. This was by no means
impossible, and the probability of it had occurred to me before. I
turned back into my room, put down the books, and took a revolver
from the safe, and, holding the lamp cautiously behind me, I made
my way along the passage--which had a corner, behind which I
thought my thief might be lying in wait--into the main room. Here I
saw no one, but the room was large and encumbered with bookcases.
I called out loudly to the intruder to show himself several times,
more with the hope of attracting a passing policeman than of
drawing the intruder. Then I saw a face looking round one of the
bookcases. I say looking _round_, but it had an odd appearance as
if the _body_ were _in_ the bookcase, as the face came so closely
to the edge and I could see no body. The face was pallid and
hairless, and the orbits of the eyes were very deep. I advanced
towards it, and as I did so I saw an old man with high shoulders
seem to _rotate_ out of the end of the bookcase, and with his back
towards me and with a shuffling gait walk rather quickly from the
bookcase to the door of a small lavatory, which opened from the
library and had no other access. I heard no noise. I followed the
man at once into the lavatory; and to my extreme surprise found no
one there. I examined the window (about 14 in. x 12 in.), and found
it closed and fastened. I opened it and looked out. It opened into
a well, the bottom of which, 10 feet below, was a sky-light, and
the top open to the sky some 20 feet above. It was in the middle
of the building, and no one could have dropped into it without
smashing the glass nor climbed out of it without a ladder--but
no one was there. Nor had there been anything like time for a man
to get out of the window, as I followed the intruder instantly.
Completely mystified, I even looked into the little cupboard
under the fixed basin. There was nowhere hiding for a child, and
I confess I began to experience for the first time what novelists
describe as an 'eerie' feeling.

"I left the library, and found I had missed my train.

"Next morning I mentioned what I had seen to a local clergyman,
who, on hearing my description, said, 'Why, that's old Q.!'
Soon after I saw a photograph (from a drawing) of Q., and the
resemblance was certainly striking. Q. had lost all his hair,
eyebrows and all, from (I believe) a gunpowder accident. His walk
was a peculiar, rapid, high-shouldered shuffle.

"Later inquiry proved he had died at about the time of year at
which I saw the figure." (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. vi. p. 57.)

Mr. J. states that he has seen but one other hallucination, a figure representing his mother, which appeared to him at the time of the birth of one of his sisters.

A hallucination of another kind was seen independently in the same library by Mr. R., the principal assistant, and a clerk, Mr. P. Mr. R. writes in 1889:--

"A few years ago I was engaged in a large building in the ----, and
during the busy times was often there till late in the evening. On
one particular night I was at work along with a junior clerk till
about 11 P.M., in the room marked A on the annexed sketch. All the
lights in the place had been out for hours except those in the room
which we occupied. Before leaving, we turned out the gas. We then
looked into the fireplace, but not a spark was to be seen. The
night was very dark, but being thoroughly accustomed to the place
we carried no light. On reaching the bottom of the staircase (B),
I happened to look up; when, to my surprise, the room which we had
just left appeared to be lighted. I turned to my companion and
pointed out the light, and sent him back to see what was wrong. He
went at once and I stood looking through the open door, but I was
not a little astonished to see that as soon as he got within a few
yards of the room the light went out quite suddenly. My companion,
from the position he was in at the moment, could not see the light
go out, but on his reaching the door everything was in total
darkness. He entered, however, and when he returned, reported that
both gas and fire were completely out. The light in the daytime was
got by means of a glass roof, there being no windows on the sides
of the room, and the night in question was so dark that the moon
shining through the roof was out of the question. Although I have
often been in the same room till long after dark, both before and
since, I have never seen anything unusual at any other time."

Mr. P. endorses this:--

"I confirm the foregoing statement."

In subsequent letters Mr. R. says:--

"The bare facts are as stated, being neither more nor less than
what took place. I have never on any other occasion had any
hallucination of the senses, and I think you will find the same to
be the case with Mr. P."

This incident took place after Mr. J.'s vision, but Mr. J. had mentioned his own experience only to his wife and one other friend, and no hint of it appears to have reached the assistants in the library, so that the two visions would appear to have been independent.

To extend the theory of thought-transference from living minds to cover a case such as that just quoted may seem to some extravagant. But if there is anything beyond chance in the occurrence--and it would be a very remarkable coincidence that three persons should independently be the subject of hallucination in the same house, and that one of the hallucinations should resemble a former occupant of the house, unknown to the percipient--some explanation is required, and an explanation which involves no novel or unproved agency is, _ceteris paribus_, to be preferred. As regards the apparently local character of the visitation, Mr. Gurney has suggested, with regard to some cases quoted in _Phantasms of the Living_ (vol. ii. pp. 267-269), where the link between agent and percipient appears to have been of a local and not of a personal character, that a similarity of immediate mental content between the percipient and agent may have been the condition of the telepathic action. In the ordinary case of an apparition, _e.g._, of a dying mother to her son, the condition of the appearance to that particular percipient rather than to the man in the street should on this hypothesis be sought in the community of intellectual and emotional experiences which may be presumed to exist between near relatives who have passed a large part of their lives in the same environment. In the cases now under consideration the substitute for such far-reaching community is to be found in the transitory occupation of both percipient and agent--the one in present sensation, the other in memory--with the same scene. Such partial community of perception, by a kind of extended association of ideas, tends under the hypothesis towards more complete community, and the agent thus imports into the sensorium of the percipient the image of his own or some other's presence in the scene which forms part of the present content of both minds. On this view Mr. J. saw the figure of Mr. Q. in the library, because some friend of Mr. Q.'s was at that moment vividly picturing to himself the late librarian in his old haunts.

Cases, such as the three last quoted, of the solitary appearance of a phantasmal figure, subsequently identified by description, photograph, or--as in Frances Reddell's case--actual encounter with the original, are rare; and experience shows how easy it may be for the somewhat vague image preserved in the memory to take on definite form and colour during the process, occasionally prolonged, of "recognition." The type cannot, therefore, be regarded as well established. As, however, such narratives have in some instances been regarded as affording evidence of the action of disembodied spirits, it seemed well to suggest that, if the facts are accepted, they are susceptible of another interpretation.

_Haunted Houses._

But there are numerous cases to which the hypothesis of telepathic infection may be applied with perhaps less hesitation. The form which so-called "ghost stories" most commonly assume is the appearance of an unrecognised phantasmal figure. When the appearance is to one person only, or when, in the intervals of its appearance to others, the matter has been freely discussed amongst the members of the household, and the details of the figure described, we should probably be justified, on the analogy of hypnotic and epidemic religious hallucinations, in regarding the original appearance as purely subjective and the later ones as due to verbal suggestion and expectancy. But there are cases where, from the definite statements of the witnesses and the surrounding circumstances, it appears at all events extremely improbable that any mention was made of the original hallucination. In such cases it seems permissible to conjecture that the later apparitions, or some of them, may have been due to telepathic suggestion from the original percipient, to whom his solitary experience would naturally be a subject of frequent and vivid reflection.

* * * * *

I received the following account from the ladies concerned after a personal interview with one of them on February 27th, 1889, in the course of which I examined the scene of the apparition, the landing of a moderate-sized London house. The landing, though narrow, is well lighted, and it seems impossible that the appearance could have been a real person. The first experience, it will be seen, is a collective hallucination, of a type discussed in the preceding chapter.

No. 94.--From MRS. KNOTT.

"LONDON, S.W.,
_March_ 5_th_, 1889.

"The incident I relate occurred at this address early in February
1889. I have lived in this house four years, and constantly _felt_
another presence was in the drawing-room besides myself, but never
_saw_ any form until last month. My cousin Mrs. R. and myself
returned from a walk at 1.30 P.M. The front door was opened for
us by my housekeeper, Mrs. E. I passed upstairs before my cousin,
and on turning to my bedroom, the door of which is beside the
drawing-room door [_i.e._, at right angles to it], I saw, as I
thought, Mrs. E. go into the drawing-room. I put a parcel into my
room and then followed her to give some order, and found the room
empty! My cousin was going up the second flight of stairs to her
room, and I called out, 'Did you open the drawing-room door as you
passed?' 'No,' she replied, 'Mrs. E. has gone in.' Mrs. R. had seen
the figure more distinctly than I; it seemed to pass her at the
top of the stairs, and she thought, 'How quietly Mrs. E. moves! "I
inquired of Mrs. E. what she did after opening the door for us, and
she said, 'Went to the kitchen to hasten luncheon, as you were in
a hurry for it.' The day was bright, and there is nothing on the
stairs that could cast a shadow. I quite hope some day I may see
the face of the figure."

From MRS. R., Malpas, Cheshire.

"_March_ 1_st_, 1889.

"In answer to your letter on the subject of the figure seen at
C. Terrace, Mrs. K. and I had just come in at about half-past
one o'clock. Mrs. E. (the housekeeper) had opened the door. We
went upstairs, and on the first landing are two rooms, one the
drawing-room, the other Mrs. K.'s bedroom. She went into her room
while I stood a minute or two talking to her. Just as I turned
to go up the next flight of stairs I thought I saw Mrs. E. pass
me quickly and go into the drawing-room. Beyond seeing a slight
figure in a dark dress I saw nothing more, for I did not look at
it, but just saw it pass me. Before I got upstairs Mrs. K. called
out, 'Did you leave the drawing-room door open?' I answered, 'I
did not go in; I saw Mrs. E. go in.' Mrs. K. answered, 'There is
nobody there.' We asked Mrs. E. if she had been up; she, on the
contrary, had gone straight down. Also, as she said, she would
not have passed me on the landing, but have waited until I had
gone upstairs; and as it struck me _afterwards_, she could not
have passed me on such a small landing without touching me, but I
never noticed that at the time. I do not know if a thought ever
embodies itself, but my idea was, and is, that as Mrs. E. ran
downstairs her thought went up, wondering if the drawing-room fire
was burning brightly. The figure I saw went into the room as if it
had a purpose of some sort. I have never seen anything of the sort
before."

In a later letter Mrs. R. adds:--

"_March_ 10_th_, 1889.

"I am afraid I cannot give any very definite reply to your
questions.

"(1) 'Had I any idea of the house being haunted?' No; and I do not
think it is supposed to be haunted. Mrs. K. has said that at times
it has seemed to her as if there was some one else in the room
beside herself, but I think that is a feeling that has come to most
people some time or other.

"(2) 'Did we see it simultaneously?' That I cannot exactly say, but
I should think yes, for we neither of us said anything until Mrs.
K. called out to me to know if I had been in the drawing-room."

In commenting on the story in November 1889 (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. vi. p. 250), I wrote, "Here we may almost see the story of a haunted house in the making. The essential elements are there. We have the visionary figure seen by two persons at once, and the mysterious feeling of an alien presence in the room. It is quite possible that the latter circumstance would have passed unrecorded, and even unnoticed, but for the subsequent phantasm, through which it gained a retrospective importance." My comments have met with unexpected justification. On April 7th, 1893, Mrs. Knott again wrote to me as follows:--

"On Saturday, the 18th March, at 1.50 P.M., Mrs. H. and I were
going upstairs to the drawing-room, she first, I following with
some flowers, _not looking up_. I heard her say, 'Mrs. E., don't
go down until you have seen my screen.' (Mrs. H. had just finished
painting one.) I said, 'Mrs. E. isn't here.' Mrs. H. replied, 'Yes,
she is in the drawing-room.' Then I heard her say, 'Where _has_ the
woman gone?' for no one was visible in the room, and Mrs. H. said
she _distinctly_ saw a figure go in, and felt sure it was Mrs. E.
This is exactly the same impression that Mrs. R. and I had when we
each saw the figure go into the drawing-room four years ago, in
February, and it was about the same hour of the day."

In a later letter Mrs. Knott explains that Mrs. H. had heard of the earlier apparition on the same spot, but adds that the story "most certainly did not stay in her mind." We shall probably be justified in assuming, however, that Mrs. H.'s hallucinatory experience was due to a subconscious reminiscence of her friend's ghost-story.

In the case which follows, however, there is strong evidence that the phantasms were seen independently by each percipient. The narrators are unwilling that their names or that of the house should appear. Mr. Gurney, however, fully discussed the circumstances with them at a personal interview.

No. 95.--From MRS. W.

"_February_ 19_th_, 1885.

=A= Piano. =B= First position of figure. =C= Second position of figure. =D= Garden door. =E= Baize door. =F= Front door and porch. =G= Front gate.]

"In June 1881 we went to live in a detached villa just out of the
town of C----. Our household consisted of my husband and myself,
my step-daughter, and two little boys, aged nine and six, and two
female servants. The house was between ten and twenty years old.
We had been there about three weeks, when, about 11 o'clock one
morning, as I was playing the piano in the drawing-room, I had the
following experience:--I was suddenly aware of a figure peeping
round the corner of the folding-doors to my left; thinking it must
be a visitor, I jumped up and went into the passage, but no one was
there, and the hall door, which was half glass, was shut. I only
saw the upper half of the figure, which was that of a tall man,
with a very pale face and dark hair and moustache. The impression
lasted only a second or two, but I saw the face so distinctly that
to this day I should recognise it if I met it in a crowd. It had a
sorrowful expression. It was impossible for any one to come into
the house without being seen or heard. I was startled, but not the
least frightened. I had heard no report whatever as to the house
being haunted; and am certainly not given to superstitious fancies.
I did not mention my experience to any one at the time, and formed
no theory about it. In the following August, one evening about
8.30, I had occasion to go into the drawing-room to get something
out of the cupboard, when, on turning round, I saw the same face
in the bay-window, in front of the shutters, which were closed. I
again saw only the upper part of the figure, which seemed to be in
a somewhat crouching posture. The light on this occasion came from
the hall and the dining-room, and did not shine directly on the
window; but I was able perfectly to distinguish the face and the
expression of the eyes. This time I _was_ frightened, and mentioned
the matter to my husband the same evening. I then also told him of
my first experience. On each of these occasions I was from 8 to 10
feet distant from the figure.

"Later in the same month I was playing cricket in the garden with
my little boys. From my position at the wickets I could see right
into the house through an open door, down a passage, and through
the hall as far as the front door. The kitchen door opened into the
passage. I distinctly saw the same face peeping round at me out of
the kitchen door. I again only saw the upper half of the figure.
I threw down the bat and ran in. No one was in the kitchen. One
servant was out, and I found that the other was up in her bedroom.
I mentioned this incident at once to my husband, who also examined
the kitchen without any result.

"A little later in the year, about 8 o'clock one evening, I was
coming downstairs alone, when I heard a voice from the direction,
apparently, of my little boys' bedroom, the door of which was open.
It distinctly said, in a deep sorrowful tone, 'I can't find it.' I
called out to my little boys, but they did not reply, and I have
not the slightest doubt that they were asleep; they always called
out if they heard me upstairs. My step-daughter, who was downstairs
in the dining-room with the door open, also heard the voice, and
thinking it was me calling, cried out, 'What are you looking for?'
We were extremely puzzled. The voice could not by any possibility
have belonged to any member of the household. The servants were in
the kitchen, and my husband was out.

"A short time after I was again coming downstairs after dark in the
evening when I felt a sharp slap on the back. It startled but did
not hurt me. There was no one near me, and I ran downstairs and
told my husband and my step-daughter.

"I have never in my life, on any other occasion, had any
hallucination of sight, hearing, or touch."

The following is Miss W.'s account:--

"_February_ 19_th_, 1885.

"In July, 1881, I was sitting playing the piano in our house
in C----, about 11.30 in the morning, when I saw the head and
shoulders of a man peeping round the folding-doors, in just the
same way as they had appeared to my mother, but I had not at that
time heard of her experience. I jumped up, and advanced, thinking
it was an acquaintance from a few yards off. This impression,
however, only lasted for a second; the face disappeared, but
recalling it, I perceived at once that it was certainly not that of
the gentleman whom I had for a second thought of. The resemblance
was only that they were both dark. The face was pale and
melancholy, and the hair very dark. I at once went to Mrs. W. in
the dining-room, and asked if any one had called. She said, 'No';
and I then told her what I had seen. I then for the first time
heard from her what _she_ had seen, and our descriptions completely
agreed. We had even both noticed that the hair was parted in the
middle, and that a good deal of shirt-front showed.

"A few weeks later, about 11 P.M., Mrs. W. and I were playing
bézique in the dining-room. Mr. W. was out, and the servants had
gone to bed. The door of the room was open, and I was facing it.
I suddenly had an impression that some one was looking at me, and
I looked up. There was the same face, and the upper half of the
figure, peeping round into the room from the hall. I said, 'There's
the man again!' Mrs. W. rushed to the door, but there was no one in
the hall or passage; the front door was locked, and the green baize
door which communicated with the back part of the house was shut.
The figure had been on the side of the dining-room door nearest
to the front door, and could not have got to the green baize door
without passing well in our sight. We were a good deal frightened,
and we mentioned the occurrence to Mr. W. on his return. He went
all over the house as usual before going to bed, and all windows
were fastened, and everything in order.

"A few weeks after this, about 11.30 A.M., I was upstairs playing
battledore and shuttlecock with my eldest brother in his bedroom.
The door was open. Stepping back in the course of the game, I got
out on to the landing; I looked sideways over my shoulder, in
order to strike the shuttlecock, and suddenly saw the same face
as before, and my brother called out at the same moment, 'There's
a man on the landing.' I was startled myself, but to reassure the
child I said there was no one--that he had made a mistake--and shut
the door and went on with the game. I told my father and Mrs. W. of
this as soon as I saw them.

"Later in the autumn I was sitting alone in the dining-room one
evening, with the door open. Mrs. W. had been upstairs, and I heard
her coming down. Suddenly I heard a deep, melancholy voice say, 'I
can't find it.' I called out, 'What are you looking for?' At the
same time the voice was not the least like Mrs. W.'s. She then came
in and told me she had heard exactly the same thing. My father was
out at the time, but we told him of the circumstance on his return.

"In September of 1882 I was for a week in the house with only
the two children and the servants. It was about 7.30 on Sunday
evening, and nearly dark. The others were all out in the garden. I
was standing at the dining-room window, when I caught a glimpse of
a tall man's figure slipping into the porch. I must have seen if
anybody had approached the porch by the path from the front gate,
and I should certainly have heard the latch of the gate, which
used to make a considerable noise, and I should also have heard
footsteps on the gravel-path. The figure appeared quite suddenly;
it had on a tall hat. I was very much astonished, but ran to the
door, thinking it might possibly be my father. No one was there; I
went to the gate, and looked up and down the road. No one was in
sight, and there was no possibility that anybody could have got so
suddenly out of view.

"I have never at any other time in my life had any hallucination
whatever, either of sight or hearing.

"I remember Mrs. W. telling me of her experience of the slap as
soon as she came downstairs.

"I ought to add that at the time when we were negotiating about
the house, the landlady of the lodgings where my father and I were
staying told me that all the villas of the row in which our house
was situated, ten in number, were haunted. I was with my father
when I heard this. Mrs. W. was not with us. I am certain that the
remark made no impression whatever on me, and that it did not even
recur to my mind till I saw what I have described. I did not even
mention the remark to Mrs. W."

Mrs. W. adds--

"I distinctly remember my step-daughter coming to me immediately
after her first sight of the figure, and telling me about it.
I then told her for the first time of my own experience (I had
then only had one), and our descriptions completely tallied. I
distinctly remember our agreeing about the parting of the hair
in the middle, and about the amount of white shirt-front. We
could neither of us remember whether his tie was white or black.
We agreed that we should know the face if we ever met it. And
subsequently, at an evening party, we both pitched on the same
individual as more like our strange visitor than any one else we
knew. The resemblance, however, was not extremely close.

"I distinctly remember, also, my step-daughter exclaiming, 'There's
that man again!' when we were playing bézique. I rushed at once
into the hall and found the door closed as she has described.

"I also remember her telling me at once about what she had seen,
and what her brother had exclaimed when they were playing at
battledore and shuttlecock.

"She told me about what she had seen in the porch when Mr. W. and I
returned from town on the next (Monday) morning."

The following is Surgeon-Major W.'s confirmation:--

"I was told of these various occurrences by my wife and daughter at
the times which they have specified. I only heard from my wife of
her _first_ experience after she had told me of her _second_. After
she had seen the figure during the game of cricket, I went into the
kitchen, but found everything as usual. On my return home, after my
daughter's seeing the figure peeping round the dining-room door,
I went all over the premises as my custom was, and found windows
secured and everything in order.

"My wife and daughter are as unlikely as any one I know to suffer
from causeless frights. They are completely free from nervousness,
and though these experiences were startling and bewildering to
them, they did not in the least worry themselves in consequence.

"It seems possible that the voice may have been that of one of the
children talking in sleep, and the slap some effect of imagination,
but it is not easy to account for the apparitions by any such known
causes."

In this case it seems unlikely that Mrs. W., the original percipient, was mistaken in supposing that she had not mentioned her first experience, and that Miss W. was also mistaken in her statement that she had not heard of what Mrs. W. had seen until after the apparition to herself. And it is still more unlikely that either lady would have allowed any hint of the matter to reach the ears of the children. Whilst, therefore, in the absence of contemporary notes, or of any identification of the figure, the degree of resemblance between the apparitions seen by the two ladies may have been exaggerated, we are still confronted with the problem that three persons living in the same house are credibly reported to have seen independently the hallucinatory figure of a man, and that in the two instances in which the apparitions were compared they were found to exhibit certain resemblances. That the first figure was a subjective hallucination, and that the later apparitions were reproductions of that hallucination by means of telepathic suggestion, is a solution which is, at any rate, worthy of consideration. We have in our records many cases of the kind, in which hallucinatory figures, in some cases presenting strong resemblances, are alleged to have been seen by two or more independent witnesses in the same house or locality. Thus we have accounts from Miss Kathleen Leigh Hunt, Miss Laurence, and Mr. Paul Bird, of a woman's figure seen independently by each of them in 1881 (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. iii. pp. 106 _et seq._). In another case (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. vi. pp. 270 _et seq._) a doctor in a provincial town, his two daughters, and a young lady visitor saw the figure of a young child. In other cases different hallucinatory figures have been seen independently by successive occupants of the same house, the later percipients appearing not to have heard of the earlier apparitions. Thus we have accounts of figures seen during the period from 1861 to 1875 by three different families in an old Elizabethan manor-house (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. iii. p. 118); and in a quite modern house in the South of England various phantasmal figures were seen between 1882 and 1888 by two successive sets of occupants. (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. vi. pp. 256 _et seq._[131])

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 128: She was, however, unable to find it.]

[Footnote 129: It should be explained that this account was written on a "census" form, in the limited space provided for answers to our printed questions.]

[Footnote 130: See, for instance, Nos. 47, 75, 87, etc.]

[Footnote 131: Those desiring to study further the evidence on this subject are referred to the paper on "Phantasms of the Dead," _Proc. S.P.R._, vol. iii., by Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, and the papers on "Recognised Apparitions occurring after Death," and on "Phantasms of the Dead," by Messrs. Gurney, Myers, and the present writer respectively, in Proc. v. and vi., and the "Record of a Haunted House," in Proc. viii. Many cases of the kind are also printed in the monthly journal of the Society; and there are one or two striking cases in the _Annales des Sciences Psychiques_.]