  VI. A. This case is taken from Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 94, having been contributed by Colonel Bigge, of 2 Morpeth Terrace, S.W., who took the account out of a sealed envelope, in Gurney's presence, for the first time since it was written on the day of the occurrence. An account of a circumstance which occurred to me when quartered at Templemore, Co. Tipperary, on 20th February 1847. This afternoon, about 3 o'clock P.M., I was walking from my quarters towards the mess-room to put some letters into the letter-box, when I distinctly saw Lieut.-Colonel Reed, 70th Regiment, walking from the corner of the range of buildings occupied by the officers towards the mess-room door; and I saw him go into the passage. He was dressed in a brown shooting-jacket, with grey summer regulation tweed trousers, and had a fishing-rod and a landing-net in his hand. Although at the time I saw him he was about 15 or 20 yards from me, and although anxious to speak to him at the moment, I did not do so, but followed him into the passage and turned into the ante-room on the left-hand side, where I expected to find him. On opening the door, to my great surprise, he was not there; the only person in the room was Quartermaster Nolan, 70th Regiment, and I immediately asked him if he had seen the colonel, and he replied he had not; upon which I said, "I suppose he has gone upstairs," and I immediately left the room. Thinking he might have gone upstairs to one of the officers' rooms, I listened at the bottom of the stairs and then went up to the first landing-place; but not hearing anything I went downstairs again and tried to open the bedroom door, which is opposite to the ante-room, thinking he might have gone there; but I found the door locked, as it usually is in the middle of the day. I was very much surprised at not finding the colonel, and I walked into the barrack-yard and joined Lieutenant Caulfield, 66th Regiment, who was walking there; and I told the story to him, and particularly described the dress in which I had seen the colonel. We walked up and down the barrack-yard talking about it for about ten minutes, when, to my great surprise, never having kept my eye from the door leading to the mess-room (there is only one outlet from it), I saw the colonel walk into the barracks through the gate—which is in the opposite direction—accompanied by Ensign Willington, 70th At the time I saw Colonel Reed going into the mess-room I was not aware that he had gone out fishing—a very unusual thing to do at this time of the year; neither had I seen him before in the dress I have described during that day. I had seen him in uniform in the morning at parade, but not afterwards at all until 3 o'clock—having been engaged in my room writing letters, and upon other business. My eyesight being very good, and the colonel's figure and general appearance somewhat remarkable, it is morally impossible that I could have mistaken any other person in the world for him. That I did see him I shall continue to believe until the last day of my existence. William Matthew Bigge, [On July 17th, 1885, after Colonel Bigge had described the occurrence but before the account was taken from the envelope and read, he dictated the following remarks to Gurney:—] When Colonel R. got off the car about a couple of hours afterwards, Colonel Goldie and other officers said to me, "Why, that's the very dress you described." They had not known where he was or how he was engaged. The month, February, was a most unlikely one to be fishing in. Colonel Reed was much alarmed when told what I had seen. The quartermaster, sitting at the window, would have been bound to see a real figure; he denied having seen anything. I have never had the slightest hallucination of the senses on any other occasion. [It will be seen that these recent remarks exhibit two slips of memory. It is quite unimportant whether Colonel Reed was seen walking in at the gate or getting off a car. But in making the interval between the vision and the return two hours instead of ten minutes, the later account unduly diminishes the force of the case. If there is any justification at all for the provisional hypothesis that the sense of impending arrival is a condition favourable for the emission of a telepathic influence, it is of importance that, at the time when the phantasmal form was seen, Colonel Reed was not busy with his fishing, but was rapidly approaching his destination; for thus the incident, at any rate, gets the benefit of analogy with other cases.] VI. B. From the Journal S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 129. The case is recorded by the Misses H. M. and L. Bourne. Additional evidence of the hallucinatory character of the figure seen is afforded by the details having been more clearly discernible than those Miss L. Bourne writes:— On February 5th, 1887, my father, sister, and I went out hunting. About the middle of the day my sister and I decided to return home with the coachman, while my father went on. Somebody came and spoke to us, and delayed us for a few moments. As we were turning to go home, we distinctly saw my father, waving his hat to us and signing us to follow him. He was on the side of a small hill, and there was a dip between him and us. My sister, the coachman, and myself all recognised my father, and also the horse. The horse looked so dirty and shaken that the coachman remarked he thought there had been a nasty accident. As my father waved his hat I clearly saw the Lincoln and Bennett mark inside, though from the distance we were apart it ought to have been utterly impossible for me to have seen it. At the time I mentioned seeing the mark in the hat, though the strangeness of seeing it did not strike me till afterwards. Fearing an accident, we hurried down the hill. From the nature of the ground we had to lose sight of my father, but it took us very few seconds to reach the place where we had seen him. When we got there, there was no sign of him anywhere, nor could we see anyone in sight at all. We rode about for some time looking for him, but could not see or hear anything of him. We all reached home within a quarter of an hour of each other. My father then told us he had never been in the field, nor near the field, in which we thought we saw him, the whole of that day. He had never waved to us, and had met with no accident. My father was riding the only white horse that was out that day. Louisa Bourne. The second signature was added later, with the words: "This was written by my sister and me together." Miss H. M. Bourne enclosed the above in the following letter to Mrs. Dent, to whom we are indebted for the case:— Weston Subedge, Broadway, Worcestershire, May 21st, 1891. My Dear Mrs. Dent,—Louisa has asked me send you the enclosed account of the impression she, the coachman, and I had of seeing papa on Paddy in the hunting-field. It was on the 5th February 1887 it happened, and in March the same year, when I was out walking alone, I thought I saw papa and Paddy stop at a little plantation of his close to, and look at the wall, which had fallen in [in] one part. He then appeared to ride a few yards towards me, but afterwards turned round and went Nina M. Bourne. Mrs. Sidgwick writes:— February 25th, 1892. I saw Miss H. Bourne and her father this afternoon. Miss Bourne told me the stories of her seeing her father, first with her sister, and later by herself, and signed the account which she and her sister had, she says, made out together about it. The groom who saw the figure at the same time has since been dismissed, and cannot be asked for his evidence. Canon Bourne remembers hearing of the matter the day it happened. The groom rode up to the ladies as they were looking, and said: "The Canon is beckoning, Miss, and I think you had better go to him; his horse looks as if he had had a fall" (that is, muddy). The figure was beckoning to them with their father's usual (and peculiar) gesture. He is a heavy man, and his white horse, adapted to carry weight, was quite unlike any other horse in the neighbourhood. Every one agrees as to the impossibility of mistaking the horse. The horses of the neighbourhood were well known to the neighbourhood in general and to the Miss Bournes in particular, as they were at that time constantly out with the hounds. The incident seems quite unaccountable. VI. C. From Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 214. We received the first account of this case—the percipient's evidence—through the kindness of Mrs. Martin, of Ham Court, Upton-on-Severn, Worcester. Antony, Torpoint, December 14th, 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 4 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 Frances Reddell. This at first sight might be taken for a mere delusion of an excitable or over-tired servant, modified and exaggerated by the subsequent sight of the real mother. If such a case is to have evidential force, we must ascertain beyond doubt that the description of the experience was given in detail before any knowledge of the reality can have affected the percipient's memory or imagination. This necessary corroboration has been kindly supplied by Mrs. Pole-Carew, of Antony, Torpoint, Devonport. December 31st, 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.] She did not seem to be very ill in spite of it, and as there seemed no fear of danger, and Lord and Lady Waldegrave had to go a long journey the following day (Thursday), they decided to leave her, as they were advised to do, under their friend's care. The illness ran its usual course, and she seemed to be going on perfectly well till the Sunday week following, when the doctor told me that the fever had left her, but the state of weakness which had supervened was such as to make him extremely anxious. I immediately engaged a regular nurse, greatly against the wish of Reddell, my maid, who had been her chief nurse all through the illness, and who was quite devoted to her. However, as the nurse could not conveniently come till the following day, 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 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, formerly 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."] Now what I imagine to have happened here is this. The mother, anxious about her daughter, paid her a psychical visit during the sleep of both. In so doing she actually modified a certain portion of space, not materially nor optically, but in such a manner that persons perceptive in a certain fashion would discern in that part of space an image approximately corresponding to the conception of her own aspect latent in the invading mother's mind. A person thus susceptible happened to be in the room, and thus, as a bystander, witnessed a psychical invasion whose memory the invader apparently did not retain, while the invaded person—the due percipient—may or may not have perceived it in a dream, but died and left no sign of having done so. VI. D. From the "Report on the Census of Hallucinations," Proceedings S.P.R., vol. x. p. 332. The account is given by Mrs. McAlpine. Garscadden, Beardsden, Glasgow, April 20th, 1892. I remember in the June of 1889, I drove to Castleblaney, a little town in the county Monaghan, to meet my sister, who was coming by train from Longford. I expected her at three o'clock, but as she did not come with that train, I got the horse put up, and went for a walk in the demesne. The day was very warm and bright, and I wandered on under the shade of the trees to the side of a lake, which is in the demesne. Being at length tired, I sat down to rest upon a rock, at the edge of the water. My attention was quite taken up with the extreme beauty of the scene before me. There was not a sound or movement, except the soft ripple of the water on the sand at my feet. Presently I felt a cold chill creep through me, and a curious stiffness of my limbs, as if I could not move, though wishing to do so. I felt frightened, yet chained to the spot, and as if impelled to stare at the water straight in front of me. Gradually a black cloud seemed to rise, and in the midst of it I saw a tall man, in a suit of tweed, jump into the water and sink. In a moment the darkness was gone, and I again became sensible of the heat and sunshine, but I was awed and felt "eerie"—it was then about four o'clock or so—I cannot remember either the exact time or date. On my sister's arrival I told her of the occurrence; she was surprised, but inclined to laugh at it. When we got home I told my brother; he treated the subject much in the same manner. However, about a week afterwards, Mr. Espie, a bank clerk (unknown to me), committed suicide by drowning in that very spot. He left a letter for his wife, indicating that he had for some time contemplated his death. My sister's memory of the event is the only evidence I can give. I did not see the account of the inquest at the time, and did not mention my strange experience to any one, saving my sister and brother. F. C. McAlpine. Mrs. McAlpine's sister writes:— Roxboro', February 15th, 1892. I remember perfectly you meeting me in Castleblaney, on my way home from Longford, and telling me of the strange thing which happened in the demesne. You know you were always hearing or seeing something and I paid little attention; but I remember it distinctly—your troubled expression more than the story. You said a tall gentleman, dressed in tweed, walked past you, and went into a little inlet or creek. I think, but am not sure, that you said he had a beard. You were troubled about it, or looked so; and I talked of other things. You told me while we were driving home. I think, but I am not sure, that it was about the 25th or 27th of June 1889 that I left Longford. I am sure of that being the day, but cannot remember the date. It was in June, and on the 3rd of July, 1889, a Mr. Espie, a bank clerk, drowned himself in the lake in the demesne in 'Blaney. I have no doubt that the day I came home you saw Mr. Espie's "fetch." The following account is taken from a local paper, the Northern Standard, Saturday, July 6th, 1889:— Sad Case of Suicide.—The town of Castleblaney was put into a fearful state of excitement when it became known on Wednesday last that Mr. Espy had committed suicide by drowning himself in the lake in the demesne. Latterly, he was noticed to be rather dull and low in spirits, but no serious notice was taken of his conduct, nor had any one the most remote idea that he contemplated suicide. On Wednesday morning he seemed in his usual health, and, as was customary with him, walked down to get his newspaper on the arrival of the 9.45 train from Dublin. He met Mr. Fox (in whose office he has been for years) at the station, and having procured his paper walked up to the office, wrote a note in which he stated what he was going to do, and indicating where his body would be found. This seemed to concern him a good deal, for he seemed very anxious that his body should be recovered without any delay. He had fishing-tackle in his pocket, and having tied one end of a pike-line to a tree, and the other end round one of his legs, he threw himself into about three feet deep of water, where he was found shortly afterwards quite dead, and before the note that he had left in the office had been opened. It would be possible, no doubt, to explain this appearance as simply precognitive—as a picture from the future impressed in some unknown way upon the percipient's inner vision. There are certain cases which strongly suggest this extreme hypothesis. But it seems here simpler to assume that the unhappy man was already imagining his plunge into the lake when Mrs. McAlpine visited the shore, and that his intense thought effected a self-projection, conscious or unconscious, of some element of his being. VI. E. From Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 239. Mrs. Elgee, of 18 Woburn Road, Bedford, gave the following account:— March 1st, 1885. In the month of November 1864, being detained in Cairo, on my way out to India, the following curious circumstance occurred to me:— Owing to an unusual influx of travellers, I, with the young lady under my charge (whom we will call D.) and some other passengers of the outward-bound mail to India, had to take up our abode in a somewhat unfrequented hotel. The room shared by Miss D. and myself was large, lofty, and gloomy; the furniture of the scantiest, consisting of two small beds, placed nearly in the middle of the room and not touching the walls at all, two or three rush-bottomed chairs, a very small washing stand, and a large old-fashioned sofa of the settee sort, which was placed against one half of the large folding doors which gave entrance to the room. This settee was far too heavy to be removed, unless by two or three people. The other half of the door was used for entrance, and faced the two beds. Feeling rather desolate and strange, and Miss D. being a nervous person, I locked the door, and, taking out the key, put it under my pillow; but on Miss D. remarking that there might be a duplicate which could open the door from outside, I put a chair against the door, with my travelling bag on it, so arranged that, on any pressure outside, one or both must fall on the bare floor, and make noise enough to rouse me. We then proceeded to retire to bed, the one I had chosen being near the only window in the room, which opened with two glazed doors, almost to the floor. These doors, on account of the heat, I left open, first assuring myself that no communication from the outside could be obtained. The window led on to a small balcony, which was isolated, and was three stories above the ground. I suddenly woke from a sound sleep with the impression that somebody had called me, and, sitting up in bed, to my unbounded astonishment, by the clear light of early dawn coming in through the large window before mentioned, I beheld the figure of an old and very valued friend whom I knew to be in England. He appeared as if most eager to speak to me, and I addressed him with, "Good gracious! how did you come here?" So clear was the figure, that I noted every detail of his dress, even to three onyx shirt-studs which he always wore. He seemed to come a step nearer to me, when he suddenly pointed across the room, and on my looking round, I saw Miss D. sitting up in her bed, gazing at the figure with every expression of terror. On looking back, my friend seemed to shake his head, and retreated step by step, slowly, till he seemed to sink through that portion of the door where the settee stood. I never knew what happened to me after this; but my next remembrance is of bright sunshine pouring through the window. Gradually the remembrance of what had happened came back to me, and the question arose in my mind, had I been dreaming, or had I seen a visitant from another world?—the bodily presence of my friend being utterly impossible. Remembering that Miss D. had seemed aware of the figure as well as myself, I determined to allow Presently, on Miss D. waking up, she looked about the room, and, noticing the chair and bag, made some remark as to their not having been much use. I said, "What do you mean?" and then she said, "Why, that man who was in the room this morning must have got in somehow." She then proceeded to describe to me exactly what I myself had seen. Without giving any satisfactory answer as to what I had seen, I made her rather angry by affecting to treat the matter as a fancy on her part, and showed her the key still under my pillow, and the chair and bag untouched. I then asked her, if she was so sure that she had seen somebody in the room, did not she know who it was? "No," said she, "I have never seen him before, nor any one like him." I said, "Have you ever seen a photograph of him?" She said, "No." This lady never was told what I saw, and yet described exactly to a third person what we both had seen. Of course, I was under the impression my friend was dead. Such, however, was not the case; and I met him some four years later, when, without telling him anything of my experience in Cairo, I asked him, in a joking way, could he remember what he was doing on a certain night in November 1864. "Well," he said, "you require me to have a good memory;" but after a little reflection he replied, "Why, that was the time I was so harassed with trying to decide for or against the appointment which was offered me, and I so much wished you could have been with me to talk the matter over. I sat over the fire quite late, trying to think what you would have advised me to do." A little cross-questioning and comparing of dates brought out the curious fact that, allowing for the difference of time between England and Cairo, his meditations over the fire and my experience were simultaneous. Having told him the circumstances above narrated, I asked him had he been aware of any peculiar or unusual sensation. He said none, only that he had wanted to see me very much. E. H. Elgee. In answer to inquiries, Mrs. Elgee says:— I fear it is quite impossible to get any information from Miss D. She married soon after we reached India, and I never met her since, nor do I know where she is, if alive. I quite understand the value of her corroboration; and at the time she told the whole circumstance to a fellow-traveller, who repeated it to me, and her story and mine agreed in every particular, save that to her the visitant was a complete stranger; and her tale was quite unbiassed by mine, as I always treated hers as a fancy, and never acknowledged I had been aware of anything unusual having taken place in our room at Cairo. I never have seen, or fancied I saw, any one before or since. My visitant, also, is dead, or he would, I know, have added his testimony, The publication of Phantasms of the Living led fortunately to our obtaining the testimony of the second percipient, now Mrs. Ramsay, of Clevelands, Bassett, Southampton, whose account follows:— July 1891. I have been asked by a leading member of the Psychical Society to write down what I can remember of a strange experience that occurred no less than twenty-seven years ago. I now do so as simply as I can, and to the best of my recollection. In October 1864, I was travelling to India, going to rejoin my parents, from whom I had been separated twelve years, a kind friend—a Mrs. E.—having undertaken to chaperon me as far as Calcutta. She was going out to join her husband, Major E., of the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers. We started by a P. & O steamer—the Ceylon—from Southampton, and travelled by the overland route, via Alexandria and Cairo, to Suez. We landed at Alexandria, and went by rail across the desert to Cairo. There all passengers had to sleep the night before proceeding on to Suez. Shepherd's Hotel was the best hotel then, and there was consequently a great rush to try and get rooms in it; but Mrs. E. and I, finding we could get no corner, decided, with two or three other passengers, to get accommodation in the HÔtel de l'Europe. We felt somewhat nervous at the swarthy visages of the Arabs all round us, and for this reason selected our quarters on the very highest storey, thinking we should be more out of reach of robbers and thieves than if we were on the ground floor. This is an important point to remember, as no one could have effected an entrance into our room from outside. It was a bright moonlight night when we went to bed, and I can recollect as if it were yesterday this fact, that the shadow of a "pepul" tree was reflected on the wall opposite our beds—the leaves of the tree were trembling and shaking, as the leaves of a "pepul" always do, making the shadows dance about the wall. Before we finally retired to rest we made the grandest arrangements for personal security! The window looking out on to the street below was much too high up to be at all unsafe. So we left that open (I think) but we closed our door very firmly indeed! It was a large folding door, and opened inwards. We locked it carefully, leaving the key in the lock; pushed an arm-chair against the middle of the door; and, to crown all, we balanced a hand-bag on one of the arms, with a bunch of keys in the lock thereof! so that if any intruder should venture to open that door, we should know of it at any rate!! (But no one did venture, and we found everything in the morning exactly as we had left it.) I remember that Mrs. E. was very careful about tucking her mosquito curtains all round, but I disliked the feeling of suffocation they gave, and put mine up; not realising, of course, in my inexperience, what the consequences would be for myself; for these small plagues of Egypt (!) soon descended upon me, nearly eating The next morning, while we were dressing, she remarked how odd I looked, and quite apart from the mosquito bites, I know I did. We had a good laugh over my comical appearance, for I had not scrupled to scratch the bites, until my forehead and face resembled a plum bun! I believe I then told her it was not strange that I should look odd, for I "had seen a ghost." She started violently, and asked me to tell her what I saw. I described it as best I could, and she said she had seen "it" too, and that she knew it to be the form and face of a valued friend. She was much disturbed about it—as, indeed, so was I, for I had never indulged in "hallucinations" and was not given to seeing visions. We proceeded next day to join our ship at Suez, and when on board, it was a great relief to us to be able to tell it to a kind fellow-passenger. He was an absolute sceptic in all matters relating to the invisible world, but he was obliged to admit that it was the most extraordinary thing he had ever heard.... I should like to add that I have never, before or since, had any kind of vision. Our experience at Cairo had this sequel, that Mrs. E.'s spirit-friend happened to be, at that very time, in great perplexity of mind—most anxious about some very important event in his life. He was sitting in his room one night in the month of October 1864, and a most intense yearning came over him for her advice and assistance—so great was it, that he felt as if an invisible power had drawn him into some spirit-state, in which he could and did see her. For a somewhat similar case, that of the apparition of General FrÉmont (too lengthy to quote here), I may refer the reader to the Journal S.P.R., vol. v. p. 54. The crisis there is the removal of long and wearing anxiety; the self-projection into the home-scene which now at last the General felt assured of being able to reach alive. VI. F. From Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. pp. 104-109. The following case was especially remarkable in that there were two percipients. The narrative was copied by Gurney from a MS. book of Mr. S. H. B.'s, to which he transferred it from an almanac diary, since lost. On a certain Sunday evening in November 1881, having been reading of the great power which the human will is capable of exercising, I determined with the whole force of my being, that I would be present in spirit in the front bed-room on the second floor of a house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance, viz., Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C. V., aged respectively 25 and 11 years. I was living at this time at 23 Kildare Gardens, a distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road, and I had not mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to either of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that I made up my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I would be there was 1 o'clock in the morning, and I also had a strong intention of making my presence perceptible. On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in question, and in the course of conversation (without any allusion to the subject on my part) the elder one told me, that on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke her little sister, who saw me also. I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most decidedly in the affirmative, and upon my inquiring the time of the occurrence, she replied, about 1 o'clock in the morning. This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event and signed it. This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment of this kind, and its complete success startled me very much. Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put forth an effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort permeating in my body, and had a distinct impression that I was exercising some force with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but which I can now at certain times set in motion at will. S. H. B. Of the original entry in the almanac diary, Mr. B. says: "I recollect having made it within a week or so of the occurrence of the experiment, and whilst it was perfectly fresh in my memory." Miss Verity's account is as follows:— January 18th, 1883. On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our house in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr. B. in my room, about 1 o'clock. I was perfectly awake and was much terrified. I awoke my L. S. Verity. In answer to inquiries, Miss Verity adds: "I had never had any hallucination of the senses of any sort whatever." Miss E. C. Verity says:— I remember the occurrence of the event described by my sister in the annexed paragraph, and her description is quite correct. I saw the apparition which she saw, at the same time and under the same circumstances. E. C. Verity. Miss A. S. Verity says:— I remember quite clearly the evening my eldest sister awoke me by calling to me from an adjoining room; and upon my going to her bedside, where she slept with my youngest sister, they both told me they had seen S. H. B. standing in the room. The time was about 1 o'clock. S. H. B. was in evening dress, they told me. A. S. Verity. Mr. B. does not remember how he was dressed on the night of the occurrence. Miss E. C. Verity was asleep when her sister caught sight of the figure, and was awoke by her sister's exclaiming, "There is S." The name had therefore met her ear before she herself saw the figure; and the hallucination on her part might thus be attributed to suggestion. But it is against this view that she has never had any other hallucination, and cannot therefore be considered as predisposed to such experiences. The sisters are both equally certain that the figure was in evening dress, and that it stood in one particular spot in the room. The gas was burning low, and the phantasmal figure was seen with far more clearness than a real figure would have been. "The witnesses" (says Gurney) "have been very carefully cross-examined by the present writer. There is not the slightest doubt that their mention of the occurrence to S. H. B. was spontaneous. They had not at first intended to mention it; but when they saw him, their sense of its oddness overcame their resolution. Miss Verity is a perfectly sober-minded and sensible witness, with no love of marvels, and with a considerable dread and dislike of this particular form of marvel." [I omit here for want of space the next case, in which Mr. S. H. B. attempted to appear in Miss Verity's house at two different hours on the same evening, and was seen there, at both the times fixed, by a married sister who was visiting in the house.] Gurney requested Mr. B. to send him a note on the night that he intended to make his next experiment of the kind, and received the following note by the first post on Monday, March 24th, 1884. March 22nd, 1884. Dear Mr. Gurney,—I am going to try the experiment to-night of making my presence perceptible at 44 Norland Square, at 12 P.M. I will let you know the result in a few days.—Yours very sincerely, S. H. B. The next letter was received in the course of the following week:— April 3rd, 1884. Dear Mr. Gurney,—I have a strange statement to show you, respecting my experiment, which was tried at your suggestion, and under the test conditions which you imposed. Having quite forgotten which night it was on which I attempted the projection, I cannot say whether the result is a brilliant success, or only a slight one, until I see the letter which I posted you on the evening of the experiment. Having sent you that letter, I did not deem it necessary to make a note in my diary, and consequently have let the exact date slip my memory. If the dates correspond, the success is complete in every detail, and I have an account signed and witnessed to show you. I saw the lady (who was the subject) for the first time last night, since the experiment, and she made a voluntary statement to me, which I wrote down at her dictation, and to which she has attached her signature. The date and time of the apparition are specified in this statement, and it will be for you to decide whether they are identical with those given in my letter to you. I have completely forgotten, but yet I fancy that they are the same. S. H. B. This is the statement:— 44 Norland Square, W. On Saturday night, March 22nd, 1884, at about midnight, I had a distinct impression that Mr. S. H. B. was present in my room, and I distinctly saw him whilst I was quite widely awake. He came towards me, and stroked my hair. I voluntarily gave him this information, when he called to see me on Wednesday, April 2nd, telling him the time and the circumstances of the apparition, without any suggestion on his part. The appearance in my room was most vivid, and quite unmistakable. L. S. Verity. Miss A. S. Verity corroborates as follows:— I remember my sister telling me that she had seen S. H. B., and that he had touched her hair, before he came to see us on April 2nd. A. S. V. Mr. B.'s own account is as follows:— On Saturday, March 22nd, I determined to make my presence perceptible to Miss V., at 44 Norland Square, Notting Hill, at 12 midnight, and as I had previously arranged with Mr. Gurney that I should post him a letter on the evening on which I tried my next experiment (stating the time and other particulars), I sent a note to acquaint him with the above facts. About ten days afterwards I called upon Miss V., and she voluntarily told me, that on March 22nd, at 12 o'clock midnight, she had seen me so vividly in her room (whilst widely awake) that her nerves had been much shaken, and she had been obliged to send for a doctor in the morning. S. H. B. Unfortunately Mr. B.'s intention to produce the impression of touching the percipient's hair is not included in his written account. On August 21st, 1885, he wrote to Gurney, "I remember that I had this intention"; and Gurney remembered that, very soon after the occurrence, he mentioned this as one of the points which made the success "complete in every detail"; and that he recommended him in any future trial to endeavour instead to produce the impression of some spoken phrase. On this case, Gurney observes:— It will be observed that in all these instances the conditions were the same—the agent concentrating his thoughts on the object in view before going to sleep. Mr. B. has never succeeded in producing a similar effect when he has been awake. And this restriction as to time has made it difficult to devise a plan by which the phenomenon could be tested by independent observers, one of whom might arrange to be in the company of the agent at a given time, and the other in that of the percipient. Nor is it easy to press for repetitions of the experiment, which is not an agreeable one to the percipient, and is followed by a considerable amount of nervous prostration. Moreover, if trials were frequently made with the same percipient, the value of success would diminish; for any latent expectation on the percipient's part might be argued to be itself productive of the delusion, and the coincidence with the agent's resolve might be explained as accidental. We have, of course, requested Mr. B. to try to produce the effect on ourselves; but though he has more than once made the attempt, it has not succeeded. |
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