COLLECTIVE HALLUCINATIONS.

We have now to discuss that numerous class of cases in which the phantasm was perceived by two or more persons. The difficulties of interpretation which such cases present are enhanced for us by the various defects to which the evidence is here peculiarly liable. Many so-called cases of collective apparition, especially when the figure is seen out-of-doors, were probably real men and women.[121] In others we have to deal with a collective illusion, a quasi-hallucinatory superstructure built up by each witness, aided by hints from the others, on a common sensory basis. Such, for instance, appears to us the most probable interpretation of the following singular case.

From MRS. ALDERSON.

"My son and I were staying in the town of Bonchurch (Isle of Wight) last Easter vacation (1886). Our lodgings were close to the sea, and the garden of our house abutted on the beach, and there were no trees or bushes in it high enough to intercep our view. The evening of Easter Sunday was so fine that when Miss Jowett (the landlady's daughter) brought in the lamp, I begged her not to pull down the blinds, and lay on the sofa looking out at the sea, while my son was reading at the table. Owing to a letter I had just received from my sister at home, stating that one of the servants had again seen 'the old lady,' my thoughts had been directed towards ghosts and such things. But I was not a little astonished when, on presently looking out of the window, I saw the figure of a woman standing at the edge of the verandah. She appeared to be a broad woman, and not tall (Mrs. A. is tall), and to wear an old-fashioned bonnet, and white gloves on her closed hands. As it was dark the figure was only outlined against the sky, and I could not distinguish any other details. It was, however, opaque, and not in any way transparent, just as if it had been a real person. I looked at it for some time, and then looked away. When, after a time, I looked again, the woman's hands had disappeared behind what appeared to be a white marble cross, with a little bit of the top broken off, and with a railing on one side of the woman and the cross, such as one sometimes sees in graveyards.

"After looking at this apparition, which remained motionless, for some time, about twenty minutes, perhaps, I asked my son [then an undergraduate at B.N.C.] to come and to look out of the window, and tell me what he saw. He exclaimed, 'What an uncanny sight!' and described the woman and the cross exactly as I saw it. I then rang the bell, and when Miss J. answered it, I asked her also to look out of the window and tell me what she saw, and she also described the woman and the cross, just as they appeared to my son and myself. Some one suggested that it might be a reflection of some sort, and we all looked about the room to see whether there was anything in it that could cause such a reflection, but came to the conclusion that there was nothing to account for it."

Mr. Alderson writes:—

"Staying at B. (Isle of Wight) during the Easter vacation of 1886, I remember distinctly seeing an apparition in the form of a woman with her hands clasped on the top of a cross. The cross looked old and worn, as one sees in churchyards. My mother drew my attention to the figure, and after we had watched it for some time we rang the bell and asked the servant if she saw the figure. She said she did. I then went out to the verandah (where the figure was), and immediately it vanished.
"E. H. ALDERSON."

A corresponding account of the incident has been received from Miss Jowett, the landlady's daughter. We owe the accounts of the incident to Mr. F. Schiller, who investigated the matter for the Oxford Phasmatological Society.

The persistency of the vision in this case is a feature very rarely found in cases of undoubted hallucination, and the fact that it was only seen through glass suggests that the whole appearance was due to a reflection of some kind, although it must be admitted that this explanation, which was considered and rejected by the percipients at the time, cannot be accommodated to the facts without difficulty.

In the epidemics of religious hallucination so common in the Middle Ages, and still occurring from time to time in Catholic countries, it would appear that as a rule there is no objective basis for the perception. When, as at Knock, in Ireland, a few years ago, the figure of the Virgin or a Saint is said to have been seen by a large number of persons simultaneously, it seems probable that in those who really saw the figure the hallucination was due to repeated verbal suggestions acting on minds which, under the influence of strong emotion, were temporarily in a state analogous to that of trance. The nearest analogy to such cases is no doubt to be found in hypnotism. A collective hallucination can be imposed upon a whole roomful of hypnotised persons by the mere command of the operator. But not the most explicit verbal suggestion—si vera est fabula—could make the courtiers in the fairy tale see the king's clothes; and there is no evidence that with normal persons in full possession of their ordinary faculties any hints derivable from look, word, or gesture could suffice to originate an instantaneous hallucination. Still, the possibility of such an explanation under certain conditions should perhaps be kept in view. (See later, Chapter XVI.)

A possible explanation of a different kind has been already illustrated by the story quoted on page 153, where it was shown that a solitary hallucination had grown in the course of five-and-twenty years into a collective vision. The narrator in this case was a child at the time of the alleged experience. Children and uneducated persons generally, who are not prone to analyse their own sensations, seem liable after a certain interval to mistake the image called up by another's recital for an actual experience of their own; and this is especially likely to occur when the auditor was present at the time of the experience or familiar with the scene of the occurrence. Indeed, most persons who visualise with moderate facility are probably liable to this form of mistake on a small scale. I had about five years since an example of this in my own case. A friend had described to me minutely some simple apparatus of his own invention. About a year later he brought the apparatus to London and offered to show it to me. I replied that I had already seen it; but on being confronted with it I found the proportions and general appearance of the actual object quite unlike my mental image of it. I had in fact never seen the object, but the image which I had mentally constructed to enable me to follow my friend's description a year before remained so vivid as to lead me to believe that it was founded on actual sensation. But a sensory hallucination is too striking and unusual an experience to be readily feigned, and it is very improbable that the memory of educated persons, at any rate, would be untrustworthy as regards their recent experiences of the kind. As already explained, the accounts of this and other forms of telepathic affection included in this book have in almost all cases been written down within ten years of the event.

When the fullest allowance has been made for all possible explanations we find a considerable number of cases remaining of which no other account can be given than that they are apparitions, due to no ascertained cause, which are perceived by two or more persons simultaneously. That the collective perception proves the objective, or—to use a less ambiguous word—the material existence of the thing perceived, is probably held now by few persons outside the ranks of professed mystics. Apart from the theoretical difficulties of such a hypothesis—difficulties which have by no means been surmounted by the invocation of fixed ether, intercalary vortex rings, space of four dimensions, and other subtler forms of the theory evolved in recent times,—it is to be noted that no facts of any significance have been adduced to support it. There is at present no trustworthy evidence that an apparition has ever been weighed or photographed,[122] or submitted to spectroscopic or chemical analysis. But, indeed, the theory betrays its own origin in a prescientific age; and without formal destruction by argument it has shared in the euthanasia which has overtaken many other pious opinions found inadequate to the facts. The phenomena which it professes to explain are paralleled in all their essential features by other phenomena, for which even its supporters would hardly be rash enough to claim substantial reality; and as the phantasms now to be discussed bear in all points a close resemblance to those already described as occurring to solitary percipients, probably no one who accepts the one class of appearances as hallucinatory will hesitate to accept the other.

But when the hallucinatory character of collectively-perceived, or, as they may be styled for brevity, "collective" phantasms is recognised, there are difficulties of interpretation to be dealt with. On the telepathic hypothesis there are two modes in which a collective hallucination may be conceived to originate: (a) it may be communicated direct from a third person to each of the percipients; or (b) it may be communicate by telepathic infection from one percipient to another. The first explanation involves in most cases, as Mr. Gurney has pointed out (Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. pp. 171, 172), serious theoretical difficulties. For on the view to which we are led by a review of all the evidence, a telepathic hallucination, like any other, is, as a rule, the work of the percipient's mind, and is not transferred ready made from the agent. As such it is frequently of slow growth, and there are grounds for believing that it is sometimes not externalised for the percipient's senses until some hours after the receipt of the original telepathic impulse. We should hardly expect, therefore, to find two percipients independently developing similar hallucinations, and at the same moment. But in most of the cases of collective hallucination hitherto reported, the hallucinations have been, so far as could be ascertained, similar and simultaneous, so as indeed to suggest a real figure rather than a hallucination. Moreover, in well-attested recent narratives it rarely happens that a connection between the hallucination and any unusual state of the person represented is clearly established; whilst in many, perhaps most cases, the hallucination has not been recognised as resembling any person known to either percipient, and has in some instances been purely grotesque. In most cases, therefore, it seems easier to believe that we have to deal with a contagious hallucination, which, whether initiated by a telepathic impulse, or purely subjective in its origin, has been transferred telepathically from the original percipient to others in his company at the time. In some cases, indeed, it is no doubt permissible, as suggested by Mr. Gurney, to conjecture that the minds of all the percipients may have been directly influenced by the agent, and that subsequently an overflow from the mind of one of the percipients may have served to reinforce the original impulse, and determine the exact moment of the explosion in his co-percipients, just as the current regulates the exact hour of striking in electrically synchronised clocks. Or again, the mind of each percipient may react upon the others. There are, however, a few cases where the percipients appear to have had experiences relating to the same event neither precisely similar nor simultaneous, which seem to require the hypothesis of an impulse in each case directly derived from the person represented. Some cases of the kind are given in Phantasms of the Living (vol. i. p. 362; vol. ii. 173-183), and others will be cited in the latter part of this chapter. It will be more convenient, however, to begin by giving examples of the ordinary type of collective hallucination.

Collective Auditory Hallucinations.

No. 78.—From MR. C. H. CARY.

"SECRETARY'S OFFICE, GENERAL POST OFFICE,
29th March 1892.

"At Bow, London, on the 8th March 1875, at about 8.30 P.M., I heard a voice say, 'Joseph, Joseph.' I was talking with my father and cousin (Joseph Cary) about the battle of Balaclava. I was in good health, etc. My age was nearly thirteen. All three of us heard the voice, which we suppose to have been that of Joseph's grandmother."[123]

In conversation, Mr. Cary explained to me that the voice was not recognised by any of those who heard it. It was indeed at first mistaken for the voice of Mrs. Cary (Mr. C. H. Cary's mother), who was at the time in an adjoining room, but who had not spoken. A telegram announcing the grandmother's death was received on the day following, and Mr. Joseph Cary then said that the voice must have been that of his grandmother. Mr. C. H. Cary had never seen this lady.

Mr. R. H. Cary writes from 49 Gladsmuir Road, London, N.:—

"March 31st, 1892.

"With reference to your inquiry concerning the voice which was heard at the time of the late Mrs. Victor's death, I am able to state that my son, my nephew, and myself were sitting together, and we all heard it distinctly. This occurred about fourteen years ago. The account given by my son exactly coincides with my own recollection. "R. H. CARY."

We have ascertained from the Registrar-General that Mary Victor, widow of Thomas Victor, farmer, died at Linwood, Paul, Penzance, on March 8th, 1875, from bronchitis.

Mr. C. H. Cary adds that though Mrs. Victor was known to be ill, her death was not thought to be imminent. He has himself had other auditory hallucinations—viz., the hearing of footsteps on two or three occasions at about the time of the death of a relation.

In the next case the voice heard did not correspond with any external event. It was, as it were, "the after-image" of a voice once familiar in the house.

No. 79.—From MISS ANNIE NEWBOLD.

"May 7th, 1892.

"Florence N., a little child of under four years old, to whom I was very much attached, died on May 23rd, 1889. She lived in the house where I have my studio, and during the daytime was invariably with me. There were no other children in the house, and she was a general pet. I was ill for some time after her death, and one morning in July 1889 I went to see Mrs. N. We were sitting talking in her room on the ground-floor when I suddenly heard the child's voice distinctly call 'Miss Boo' (her name for me). I was about to answer, when I remembered that it could be no living voice and so continued my sentence, thinking that I would say nothing about the occurrence to her mother. At that moment Mrs. N. turned to me and said, 'Miss Newbold, did you hear that?' 'Yes,' I replied, 'what was it?' And she said, 'My little child, and she called "Miss Boo."' We both noticed that the sound came from below, as if she were standing in the kitchen doorway underneath the room in which we were sitting. There was no possibility of its being another child, as there was not one in the house. The upper floors were empty, too, at the time. I can vouch for the accuracy of this account. "ANNIE NEWBOLD."

Mrs. N. writes:—

"Miss Newbold came to see me one morning in July 1889, about two months after my only child's death. We were in my room talking when I distinctly heard my little girl's voice call 'Miss Boo.' I asked Miss Newbold if she had heard anything and she said 'Yes. What was it?' I replied, 'My little child, and she said "Miss Boo."'
"LIZZIE N."

In answer to questions, Miss Newbold writes:—

"1. Mrs. N. never heard her little girl's voice on any other occasion.

"2. We were not talking about the little girl at the time, nor upon any subject connected with her. I, however, had a box of roses on my knee, which I was mechanically sorting, and putting all the white ones on one side to send to the little child's grave.

"3. Mrs. N. has never heard any other voices, either before or since. Neither have I; but I have three or four times in my life been conscious of a presence without being able to explain definitely what it was I felt. I have never seen anything."[124]

Collective Visual Hallucinations.

Passing to visual phantasms, we will begin by citing a case in which there can be little doubt that the hallucination was purely subjective; a better case for illustrating the hypothesis of the infectious character of casual hallucination could hardly be found. It is to be noted indeed that the second percipient saw the apparition on the first occasion only after a distinct verbal suggestion, but, as already stated, there is no evidence that a single verbal suggestion can produce a hallucination in a healthy person in full possession of his normal faculties.

No. 80.—From MRS. GREIFFENBERG and MRS. ERNI-GREIFFENBERG.

Mr. F. C. S. Schiller, through whom the account was obtained, tells us that he heard the story in October 1890 from the two percipients. The following account was put together by him from an account (which he also sent us) written by Mrs. Erni-Greiffenberg, and various conversations which he had with both ladies on the subject. He afterwards obtained their signatures to it. Neither of them has had any other hallucinatory experience.

"December 14th, 1890.

"In the beginning of the summer of 1884 we were sitting at dinner at home as usual, in the middle of the day. In the midst of the conversation I noticed my mother suddenly looking down at something beneath the table. I inquired whether she had dropped anything, and received the answer, 'No, but I wonder how that cat can have got into the room?' Looking underneath the table, I was surprised to see a large white Angora cat beside my mother's chair. We both got up, and I opened the door to let the cat out. She marched round the table, went noiselessly out of the door, and when about half-way down the passage turned round and faced us. For a short time she regularly stared at us with her green eyes, then she dissolved away, like a mist, under our eyes.

"Even apart from the mode of her disappearance, we felt convinced that the cat could not have been a real one, as we neither had one of our own, nor knew of any that would answer to the description in the place, and so this appearance made an unpleasant impression upon us.

"This impression was, however, greatly enhanced by what happened in the following year, 1885, when we were staying in Leipzig with my married sister (the daughter of Mrs. Greiffenberg). We had come home one afternoon from a walk, when, on opening the door of the flat, we were met in the hall by the same white cat. It proceeded down the passage in front of us, and looked at us with the same melancholy gaze. When it got to the door of the cellar (which was locked), it again dissolved into nothing.

"On this occasion also it was first seen by my mother, and we were both impressed by the uncanny and gruesome character of the appearance. In this case, also, the cat could not have been a real one, as there was no such cat in the neighbourhood."

A very striking example of a collective hallucination, apparently of the same type, was given to us by Mrs. Ward. She and her husband, the late E. M. Ward, R.A., in 1851 saw in their bedroom two small pear-shaped lights which, when touched, broke into small luminous fragments. (Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 193.) We have also a case in which our informant, when a girl of fifteen, with another girl, saw in the middle of the room, at a dancing class, a hallucinatory chair. Yet another case is recorded by Miss Foy, a careful observer, who had been troubled for some time with a hallucinatory skeleton, the subjective character of which she fully recognised. On one occasion when in hospital the hallucination recurred, and appears to have been seen also by the patient in the adjoining bed, to whom no hint of any kind had been given. In both these cases, however, the evidence depends upon a single memory. We have another case in which a singular luminous body—apparently a hallucination of a rudimentary kind—was perceived by two witnesses coincidently with the death of a near relative of one of them. The Rev. A. T. S. Goodrick, from whom I originally received the account viva voce, was walking with a friend across a moor in Sutherlandshire

"when there suddenly arose, to all appearance out of the road between our feet as we walked, a ball of fire, about the size of an 18lb. cannon ball. It was of an orange-red colour, and there seemed to be a kind of rotatory motion in it, not unlike a firework of some description.... It seemed to move forward with us, at a distance of not more than 6 inches in front, and at the same time rose pretty swiftly breast high ... and then disappeared and left no trace."

Mr. Goodrick adds that a light rain was falling; but there was no thunderstorm.

From uneducated witnesses such an account no doubt would have but little value. A will-o'-the-wisp in an adjoining marsh, or even a flash of lightning, might in such a case form a sufficient basis for the story. And even assuming that the account here given accurately describes what was seen, it is difficult to feel certain that the appearance was hallucinatory. But if it were of a physical nature, it is certainly not easy to conjecture what it could have been, and the coincidence with the death is an additional argument for regarding the phenomenon as hallucinatory.

In the next case the phantasm seems to belong to a not unusual type of subjective hallucinations, the "after-image" of a familiar figure. There are no grounds for ascribing the apparition to any "agency" on the part of the person whose image was seen. If the incident is correctly described, the prima facie explanation is that a casual hallucination was communicated by telepathic suggestion to a second person in the company of the original percipient. At our request the two accounts which follow were written independently.

No. 81.—From MRS. MILMAN.

"17 SOUTHWELL GARDENS, S.W.,
March 20th, 1888.

"About three years ago I was coming out of the dining-room one day, after lunch, with my sister. My mother had, as I supposed, preceded us upstairs, as usual. The library door, which faces the dining-room, stood wide open, and looking through it as I crossed the hall, I saw my mother in the library, seated at the writing-table, and apparently writing. Instead, therefore, of going upstairs, as I had intended, I went to the library door, wishing to speak to her, but when I looked in the room was empty.

"At the same moment, my sister, who had also been going towards the stairs in the first instance, changed her direction, and, crossing the hall, came up to the library door behind me. She then exclaimed, 'Why, I thought I saw mamma in the library, at the writing-table.' On comparing notes, we found that we had both seen her seated at the writing-table, and bending over it as if writing. My mother was never in the habit of writing in the library.

"I recollect her dress perfectly, as the impression was quite distinct and vivid. She had on a black cloak, and bonnet with a yellow bird in it, which she generally wore.

"It is the only time anything of the kind has happened to me. "M. J. MILMAN."

From MISS CAMPBELL.

"17 SOUTHWELL GARDENS, S.W.,
March 21st, 1888.

"My sister and mother and myself, after returning from our morning drive, came into the dining-room without removing our things, and had luncheon as usual, during which my sister and I laughed and cracked jokes in the gayest of spirits. After a time my mother rose and left the room, but we remained on for a few minutes. Finally we both got up and went into the passage, and I was about to go upstairs and take off my things when I saw my sister turn into my father's study (which was directly opposite the dining-room), with the evident intention, as I supposed, of speaking to my mother, whom I distinctly noticed seated at my father's desk in her cloak and bonnet, busily absorbed in writing. The door of the study was wide open at the time. I turned round and followed her to the door, when, to my surprise, my mother had completely disappeared, and I noticed my sister turned away too, and left the room as if puzzled. I asked her, with some curiosity, what she went into the room for? She replied that she fancied she saw my mother bending over the desk writing, and went in to speak to her. Feeling very much startled and alarmed, we went upstairs to see after her, and found her in her bedroom, where she went immediately on leaving the dining-room, and had been all the time. "E. J. CAMPBELL."

In the next case the apparition was recognised by one of the percipients only, as resembling a relative who had been dead some years. Neither percipient appears to have seen the face.

No. 82.—From MRS. J. C.

"August 20th, 1893.

"Seven years ago my husband and I had the following curious experience:—

"In the middle of the night I awoke with the feeling that some one was near me, and at once saw a figure moving from the side of my bed towards the wardrobe where I kept jewellery. My supposition was that it was a burglar, and I refrained from waking my husband (whose bed was two feet from mine), as I thought the burglar would be armed, and I knew my husband would certainly attack him and be at his mercy. I therefore lay perfectly still.

"The apparition having passed the foot of my bed, then came opposite my husband's, when, to my astonishment, I saw my husband sit up in bed gazing at the figure. In a moment or two he lay down again, and the figure apparently passed to the door.

"We neither of us spoke one word that night.

"In the morning I asked my husband to look if the doors were locked (of which there are three in the room). They were all secure. I also examined the beds to see if they by any possibility could have touched, and so I unconsciously have awakened him, but they were quite separate. I then asked if he remembered anything happening in the night, and he replied, 'Yes, a strange thing: I thought I saw my father go out of that door.' Not till then did I tell him that I thought the figure was a burglar, and how frightened I had been at the thought of his struggling with an armed man, and had therefore remained silent.

"The gas was burning, and I could see quite across the room."

I received a full account of the incident orally from Mrs. C. on the 20th August 1893. She told me that she never saw the face of the figure, and could not see, or cannot now recollect, the dress. She had no doubt at the time that it was a burglar. Mrs. C. has had no other hallucination of any kind.

Mr. C. writes on the 21st August 1893:—

"I have read my wife's account, and endorse it.

"To my recollection I was not dreaming previously to sitting up in bed, when I believed I saw my father going towards the door. My mind had not been specially active about his affairs at that time, although I was rather anxious about some matters of business.

"The figure I supposed to be my father (and I had no thought it was any one else) moved noiselessly across the room and disappeared through the doorway. I should have treated it as a dream only, if my wife had not recalled my attention to it in the morning by asking me if I remembered sitting up in bed.

"Although I am certain my eyes were open at the time of the apparition, I did not see the face, but recognised the figure as that of my father by the general appearance as I remembered him.

"I have had no other similar waking experience, but have previously seen my father distinctly in a dream after his decease."

Mr. C. told me that he was positive the figure could not have been that of a real man: the doors were found locked on the inside in the morning. Moreover, his recognition of the figure, though he could not see the face, was unmistakable.

We have many similar accounts of collective phantasms which appear to have differed from subjective hallucinations of the ordinary type in no other particular than the fact of their occurrence to two persons simultaneously. Thus, to quote a few instances, Mrs. Willett, of Bedales, Lindfield, Sussex, sent us an extract from her diary describing a figure seen by her daughter and a visitor,—a fair-haired child running along a gallery. The account is confirmed by the visitor, Miss S. From Mrs. and Miss Goodhall we have an account of a tall figure seen by them when driving in a country lane. Miss C—— and two of her sisters saw in a bedroom in a London house the figure of a young man of middle height wearing a peaked cap and dark clothes. Mrs. Y. and her niece saw the figure of a child in a long grey dressing-gown running down a lighted staircase. In this last case the figure was mistaken for Mrs. Y.'s daughter, but in the other cases the phantasm bore no resemblance to any one with whom the percipients were acquainted. In no instance does it seem possible except by violently straining the probabilities to suppose the figure seen to have been that of a human being.

In the next case the phantasm, which was recognised, occurred within a short time of the death of the person represented. The narrator is a decorator and house-painter, of Uniontown, Kentucky, U.S.A.

No. 83.—From MR. S. S. FALKINBURG.

"September 12th, 1884.

"The following circumstance is impressed upon my mind in a manner which will preclude its ever being forgotten by me or the members of my family interested. My little son Arthur, who was then five years old, and the pet of his grandpapa, was playing on the floor, when I entered the house a quarter to seven o'clock, Friday evening, July 11th, 1879. I was very tired, having been receiving and paying for staves all day, and it being an exceedingly sultry evening, I lay down by Artie on the carpet, and entered into conversation with my wife—not, however, in regard to my parents. Artie, as usually was the case, came and lay down with his little head upon my left arm, when all at once he exclaimed, 'Papa! papa! Grandpa!' I cast my eyes towards the ceiling, or opened my eyes, I am not sure which, when, between me and the joists (it was an old-fashioned log-cabin), I saw the face of my father as plainly as ever I saw him in my life. He appeared to me to be very pale, and looked sad, as I had seen him upon my last visit to him three months previous. I immediately spoke to my wife, who was sitting within a few feet of me, and said, 'Clara, there is something wrong at home; father is either dead or very sick.' She tried to persuade me that it was my imagination, but I could not help feeling that something was wrong. Being very tired, we soon after retired, and about ten o'clock Artie woke me up repeating, 'Papa, grandpa is here.' I looked, and believe, if I remember right, got up, at any rate to get the child warm, as he complained of coldness, and it was very sultry weather. Next morning I expressed my determination to go at once to Indianapolis. My wife made light of it and over-persuaded me, and I did not go until Monday morning, and upon arriving at home (my father's), I found that he had been buried the day before, Sunday, July 13th.

"Now comes the mysterious part to me. After I had told my mother and brother of my vision, or whatever it may have been, they told me the following:—

"On the morning of the 11th July, the day of his death, he arose early and expressed himself as feeling unusually well, and ate a hearty breakfast. He took the Bible (he was a Methodist minister), and went and remained until near noon. He ate a hearty dinner, and went to the front gate, and, looking up and down the street, remarked that he could not, or at least would not be disappointed, some one was surely coming. During the afternoon and evening he seemed restless, and went to the gate, looking down street, frequently. At last, about time for supper, he mentioned my name, and expressed his conviction that God, in His own good time, would answer his prayers in my behalf, I being at that time very wild. Mother going into the kitchen to prepare supper, he followed her and continued talking to her about myself and family, and especially Arthur, my son. Supper being over, he moved his chair near the door, and was conversing about me at the time he died. The last words were about me, and were spoken, by mother's clock, 14 minutes of 7. He did not fall, but just quit talking and was dead.

"In answer to my inquiries, my son Arthur says he remembers the circumstances, and the impression he received upon that occasion is ineffaceable.
"SAMUEL S. FALKINBURG."

We have procured a certificate of death from the Indianapolis Board of Health, which confirms the date given.

Mrs. Falkinburg writes to us, on September 12, 1884:—

"In answer to your request, I will say that I cheerfully give my recollection of the circumstance to which you refer.

"We were living in Brown County, Indiana, fifty miles south of Indianapolis, in the summer of 1879. My husband (Mr. S. S. Falkinburg) was in the employ of one John Ayers, buying staves.

"On the evening of July 11th, about 6.30 o'clock, he came into the room where I was sitting, and lay down on the carpet with my little boy Arthur, complaining of being very tired and warm. Entering into conversation on some unimportant matter, Arthur went to him and lay down by his side. In a few moments my notice was attracted by hearing Arthur exclaim: 'Oh, papa, grandpa, grandpa, papa,' at the same time pointing with his little hand toward the ceiling. I looked in the direction he was pointing, but saw nothing. My husband, however, said: 'Clara, there is something wrong at home; father is either dead or very sick.' I tried to laugh him out of what I thought an idle fancy; but he insisted that he saw the face of his father looking at him from near the ceiling, and Arthur said, 'Grandpa was come, for he saw him.' That night we were awakened by Artie again calling his papa to see 'grandpa.'

"A short time after my husband started (Monday) to go to Indianapolis, I received a letter calling him to the burial of his father; and some time after, in conversation with his mother, it transpired that the time he and Artie saw the vision was within two or three minutes of the time his father died.
"CLARA T. FALKINBURG."

Asked whether this was his sole experience of a visual hallucination, Mr. Falkinburg replied that it was. Occasionally, however, since that time, he has had auditory impressions suggestive of his father's presence.

Here again, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it seems more probable that Mr. Falkinburg's hallucination was telepathically originated, than that the casual remark of a child of five could produce an effect hitherto observed only as the result of hypnotic influence or some other equally potent disturbing cause.

In the following case, which again comes to us from the United States, the vision was of a more complicated kind, and part only of the original percipient's experience was shared. The occurrence of the apparition within a few hours of the death of a person to whom it bore some resemblance seems to be established; but in estimating the value of the coincidence, it should be borne in mind that the phantasm was not at the time referred to the deceased, and that there are numerous chances of the coincidence of an unrecognised hallucination with a death amongst a doctor's circle of acquaintance.

No. 84.—From DR. W. O. S.,

who wrote to Dr. Hodgson from Albany, New York, on the 10th September 1888, enclosing the following account:—

"I am a physician, have been in practice about eleven years; am in excellent health, do not use intoxicants, tobacco, drugs, or strong tea or coffee. Am not subject (in the least) to dreams, and have never been a believer in apparitions, etc.

"On Monday last, September 3rd, 1888, I went to bed about 11 P.M., after my day's work. Had supper, a light one, about 7 P.M.; made calls after supper.

"My bedroom is on the second floor of a city block house, and I kept all my doors locked except the one leading to my wife's room, next to mine, opening into mine by a wide sliding door, always left wide open at night. The diagram opposite will illustrate the relation of the rooms.

"I occupy room 1 and my wife room 2. Her room has but one window, and a door opening only into my room. My room has three doors (all bolted at night) and one window. Both windows in our rooms have heavy green shades, which are drawn nearly to the bottom of the window at night, shutting out early daylight. No artificial lights command the windows, and the moonlight very seldom.

"I undressed and went to bed about 11, and soon was asleep. In the neighbourhood of 4 A.M. I was awakened by a strong light in my face. I awoke and thought I saw my wife standing at Fig. 3, as she was to rise at 5.30 to take an early train. The light was so bright and pervading that I spoke, but got no answer. As I spoke, the figure retreated to Fig. 4, and as gradually faded to a spot at Fig. 5. The noiseless shifting of the light made me think it was a servant in the hall and the light was thrown through the keyhole as she moved. That could not be, as some clothing covered the keyhole. I then thought a burglar must be in the room, as the light settled near a large safe in my room. Thereupon I called loudly to my wife, and sprang to light a light. As I called her name she suddenly awoke, and called out, 'What is that bright light in your room?' I lit the gas and searched (there had been no light in either room). Everything was undisturbed.

"My wife left on the early train. I attended to my work as usual. At noon, when I reached home, the servant who answers the door informed me that a man had been to my office to see about a certificate for a young lady who had died suddenly early that morning from a hemorrhage from the lungs. She died about one o'clock—the figure I saw about four o'clock.