Chapter 5 No.5

The Evidence of the Psychical Research Society.

In that great text-book on the subject, "The Phantasms of the Living," by Messrs. Gurney, Myers, and Podmore, the phenomenon of the Thought Body is shown to be comparatively frequent, and the Psychical Research Society have about a hundred recorded instances. I will only quote here two or three of the more remarkable cases mentioned in these imposing volumes.

The best case of the projection of the Thought Body at will is that described, under the initials of "S. H. B.," in the first volume of the "Phantasms," pp. 104-109. Mr. B. is a member of the Stock Exchange, who is well known to many intimate friends of mine as a man of high character. The narrative, which is verified by the Psychical Research Society, places beyond doubt the existence of powers in certain individuals which open up an almost illimitable field of mystery and speculation. Mr. B.'s story, in brief, is this:-

"One Sunday night in November, 1881, I was in Kildare Gardens, when I willed very strongly that I would visit in spirit two lady friends, the Misses V., who were living three miles off in Hogarth Road. I willed that I should do this at one o'clock in the morning, and having willed it I went to sleep. Next Thursday, when I first met my friends, the elder lady told me she woke up and saw my apparition advancing to her bedside. She screamed and woke her sister, who also saw me." (A signed statement by both sisters accompanies this narrative. They fix the time at one o'clock, and say that Mr. B. wore evening dress.)

"On December 1st, 1882, I was at Southall. At half-past nine I sat down to endeavour to fix my mind so strongly upon the interior of a house at Kew, where Miss V. and her sister lived, that I seemed to be actually in the house. I was conscious, but I was in a kind of mesmeric sleep. When I went to bed that night I willed to be in the front bedroom of that house at Kew at twelve, and make my presence felt by the inmates. Next day I went to Kew. Miss V.'s married sister told me, without any prompting from me, that she had seen me in the passage going from one room to another at half-past nine o'clock, and that at twelve, when she was wide awake, she saw me come into the front bedroom where she slept and take her hair, which is very long, into my hand. She said I then took her hand and gazed into the palm intently. She said, 'You need not look at the lines, for I never had any trouble.' She then woke her sister. When Mrs. L. told me this I took out the entry I had made the previous night and read it to her. Mrs. L. is quite sure she was not dreaming. She had only seen me once before, two years previously, at a fancy ball.

"On March 22nd, 1884, I wrote to Mr. Gurney, of the Psychical Research Society, telling him I was going to make my presence felt by Miss V., at 44, Norland Square, at mid-night. Ten days afterwards I saw Miss V., when she voluntarily told me that on Saturday at midnight she distinctly saw me, when she was quite wide awake. I came towards her and stroked her hair. She adds in her written statement, 'The appearance in my room was most vivid and quite unmistakable.' I was then at Ealing."

Here there is the thrice-repeated projection at will of the Thought Body through space so as to make it both visible to, and tangible by, friends. But the Conscious Personality which willed the visit has not yet unlocked the memory of his unconscious partner, and Mr. B., although able to go and see and touch, could bring back no memory of his aerial flight. All that he knew was that he willed and then he slept. The fact that he appeared is attested not by his consciousness, but by the evidence of those who saw him.

A Visitor from Burmah.

Here is a report of the apparition of a Thought Body, the material original of which was at the time in Burmah. The case is important, because the Thought Body was not recognised at the time, showing that it could not have been a subjective revival of the memory of a face. It is sent me by a gentleman in South Kensington, who wishes to be mentioned only by his initials, R.S.S.

"Towards the close of 1888 my son, who had obtained an appointment in the Indian Civil Service, left England for Burmah.

"A few days after his arrival in Rangoon he was sent up the country to join the District Commissioner of a district still at that period much harassed by Dacoits.

"After this two mails passed by without news of him, and as, up to this period, his letters had reached us with unfailing regularity, we had a natural feeling of anxiety for his safety. As the day for the arrival of the third mail drew near I became quite unreasonably apprehensive of bad news, and in this state of mind I retired one evening to bed, and lay awake till long past the middle of the night, when suddenly, close to my bedside, appeared very distinctly the figure of a young man. The face had a worn and rather sad expression; but in the few seconds during which it was visible the impression was borne in upon me that the vision was intended to be reassuring.

"I cannot explain why I did not at once associate this form with my son, but it was so unlike the hale, fresh-looking youth we had parted from only four or five months previously that I supposed it must be his chief, whom I knew to be his senior by some five years only.

"I retailed this incident to my son by the next mail, and was perplexed when I got his reply to hear that his chief was a man with a beard and moustache, whereas the apparition was devoid of either. A little later came a portrait of himself recently taken. It was the subject of my vision, of which the traits had remained, and still remain, in every detail, perfectly distinct in my recollection."

Thought Visits Seen and Remembered.

Here is an account of a visit paid at will, which is reported at first hand in the "Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society." The narrator, Mr. John Moule, tells how he determined to make an experiment of the kind now under discussion:-

"I chose for this purpose a young lady, a Miss Drasey, and stated that some day I intended to visit her, wherever the place might be, although the place might be unknown to me; and told her if anything particular should occur to note the time, and when she called at my house again to state if anything had occurred. One day, about two months after (I not having seen her in the interval), I was by myself in my chemical factory, Redman Row, Mile End, London, all alone, and I determined to try the experiment, the lady being in Dalston, about three miles off. I stood, raised my hands, and willed to act on the lady. I soon felt that I had expended energy. I immediately sat down in a chair and went to sleep. I then saw in a dream my friend coming down the kitchen stairs where I dreamt I was. She saw me, and exclaimed suddenly, 'Oh! Mr. Moule,' and fainted away. This I dreamt and then awoke. I thought very little about it, supposing I had had an ordinary dream; but about three weeks after she came to my house and related to my wife the singular occurrence of her seeing me sitting in the kitchen where she then was, and she fainted away and nearly dropped some dishes she had in her hands. All this I saw exactly in my dream, so that I described the kitchen furniture and where I sat as perfectly as if I had been there, though I had never been in the house. I gave many details, and she said, 'It is just as if you had been there.'" (Vol. III. pp. 420, 421.)

Mr. W. A. S., to quote another case, in April, 1871, at two o'clock in the afternoon, was sitting in a house in Pall Mall. He saw a lady glide in backwards at the door of the room, as if she had been slid in on a slide, each part of her dress keeping its proper place without disturbance. She glided in until the whole of her could be seen, except the tip of her nose, her lips, and the tip of her chin, which were hidden by the edge of the door. She was an old acquaintance of his, whom he had not seen for twenty or twenty-five years. He observed her closely until his brother entered the house, and coming into the room passed completely through the phantasm, which shortly afterwards faded away. Another person in the room could not see it. Some years afterwards he learned that she had died the same year, six months afterwards, from a painful cancer of the face. It was curious that the phantasm never showed him the front of its face, which was always hidden by the door. (Vol. II. p. 517.)

Sometimes, however, the Thought Body is both conscious and visible, although in most cases when visible it is not conscious, and retains no memory of what has passed. When it remembers it is usually not visible. In Mr. Dale Owen's remarkable volume, "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," there is a narrative, entitled "The Visionary Excursion," in which a lady, whom he calls Mrs. A., whose husband was a brigadier-general in India, describes an aerial flight so explicitly that I venture to reprint her story here, as illustrating the possibility of being visible and at the same time remembering where you had been:-

In June of the year 1857, a lady, whom I shall designate as Mrs. A., was residing with her husband, a colonel in the British army, and their infant child, on Woolwich Common, near London.

One night in the early part of that month, suddenly awaking to consciousness, she felt herself as if standing by the bedside and looking down upon her own body, which lay there by the side of her sleeping husband. Her first impression was that she had died suddenly, and the idea was confirmed by the pale and lifeless look of the body, the face void of expression, and the whole appearance showing no sign of vitality. She gazed at it with curiosity for some time, comparing its dead look with that of the fresh countenances of her husband and of her slumbering infant in the cradle hard by. For a moment she experienced a feeling of relief that she had escaped the pangs of death; but the next she reflected what a grief her death would be to the survivors, and then came the wish that she had broken the news to them gradually.

While engaged in these thoughts she felt herself carried to the wall of her room, with a feeling that it must arrest her further progress. But no, she seemed to pass through it into the open air. Outside the house was a tree; and this also she seemed to traverse as if it interposed no obstacle. All this occurred without any desire on her part.

She crossed Woolwich Common, visited the Arsenal, returned to the barracks, and then found herself in the bed-chamber of an intimate friend, Miss L. M., who lived at Greenwich. She began to talk; but she remembered no more until she waked by her husband's side. Her first words were, "So I am not dead after all." She told her husband of her excursion, and they agreed to say nothing about it until they heard from Miss L. M.

When they met that lady, two days after, she volunteered the statement that Mrs. A. had appeared to her about three o'clock in the morning of the night before last, robed in violet, and had a conversation with her ("Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," p. 256.)

A Doctor's Experience of the Dual Body.

Whatever may be thought of the Psychic's description of her experiences in her thought journey, they are vivid and realistic. Here is the description given by a medical man in a well-known watering-place on the south coast of his experience in getting into his material body after an aerial excursion:-

"I was engaged to a young lady whom I very much loved. During the early part of this engagement I visited the Hall in the village, not far from the Vicarage, where the young lady resided. I was in the habit of spending from Sunday to Monday at the Hall. On one of these mornings of my departure I found myself standing between the two closed windows in the lady's bedroom. It was about five o'clock on a bright summer morning. Her room looked eastward, mine directly west, and the church stood between the two houses, which were about five hundred yards apart. I have no impression whatever how I became transplanted from the house. The lady was in a camp bedstead, directly opposite to me, looking at and reaching out her arms towards me, when my disembodied spirit instantly disappeared to join the material body which it had left in some mysterious way. As I returned and was fitting in to my body on my left side, when half united I could see within me the ununited spiritual part on glow like an electric light, while the other united half was hidden in total darkness, looking black as through a thunder cloud, when, like the shutting of a drawer, the whole body became united, and I awoke in great alarm, with a belief that if any one had entered my room and moved my body from the position in which it lay on its back, the returning spirit could not have joined its material case, and that death, as it is vulgarly called, would have been inevitable."

In the morning at the breakfast-table the young lady said she had a strange experience. She saw M.D. in her bedroom, looking at her as she sat up in bed, and that he disappeared after a short stay; but how he got there she could not say, as she was positive she had locked her bedroom door. So one experience corroborated the other.[5]

5 (Return)

Quoted from a remarkable work by James Gillingham, surgical mechanist, Chard, Somerset. Mr. Gillingham sent me the name of the doctor, and assures me that the narrative is quite authentic.

Speaking Doubles.

While discussing the subject, some friends called at Mowbray House, and were, as usual, asked to pay toll in the shape of communicating any experience they had had of the so-called supernatural. One of my visitors gave me the following narrative, the details of which are in the possession of the Psychical Research Society:-

"Some years ago my father and another son were crossing the Channel at night. My mother, who was living in England, was roused up in the middle of the night by the apparition of my father. She declares that she saw him quite distinctly standing by her bedside, looking anxious and distraught. Knowing that at that moment he was in mid-Channel, she augured that some disaster had overtaken him or the boy. She said, 'Is there some trouble?' He said, 'There is; the boy--' and then he faded from her sight. The curious part of the story is that my father at that very time had been thinking on board the steamer of having to tell his wife of the loss of the boy. The lad had been missed, and for a short time father feared he had fallen overboard. Shortly afterwards he was discovered to be quite safe. But during the period of suspense father was vividly conscious of the pain of having to break the news to his wife. It was subsequently proved by a comparison of the hour that his double had not only appeared but had spoken at the very moment he was thinking of how to tell her the news midway between France and England."

Another case in which the double appeared was that of Dr. F. R. Lees, the well-known temperance controversialist. On communicating with the Doctor, the following is his reply:-

"The little story or incident of which you have heard occurred above thirty years ago, and may be related in very few words. Whether it was coincidence, or transference of vivid thought, I leave to the judgment of others.

"I had left Leeds for the Isle of Jersey (though my dear wife was only just recovering from a nervous fever) to fulfil an important engagement. On a Good Friday, myself and a party of friends in several carriages drove round a large portion of the island, coming back to St. Heliers from Bouley Bay, taking tea about seven o'clock at Captain --'s villa. The party broke up about ten o'clock, and the weather being fine and warm, I walked to the house of a banker who entertained me. Naturally, my evening thoughts reverted to my home, and after reading a few verses in my Testament, I walked about the room until nearly eleven, thinking of my wife, and breathing the prayer, 'God bless you.'

"I might not have recalled all the circumstances, save for the letter I received by the next post from her, with the query put in: 'Tell me what you were doing within a few minutes of eleven o'clock on Friday evening? I will tell you in my next why I ask; for something happened to me.' In the middle of the week the letter came, and these words in it:-'I had just awoke from a slight repose, when I saw you in your night-dress bend over me, and utter the words, "God bless you!" I seemed also to feel your breath as you kissed me. I felt no alarm, but comforted, went off into a gentle sleep, and have been better ever since.' I replied that this was an exact representation of my mind and words."

Here there was apparently the instantaneous reproduction in Leeds of the image, and not only of the image but of the words spoken in Jersey, a hundred miles away. The theory that the phantasmal body is occasionally detachable from the material frame accounts for this in a fashion, and that is more than can be said for any other hypothesis that has yet been stated. In neither of these cases did an early death follow the apparition of the dual body.

An Unknown Double Identified.

Neither of these stories, however, is so wonderful as the following narrative, which is forwarded to me by a correspondent in North Britain, who received the statement from a Colonel now serving in India on the Bengal Staff, whose name is communicated on the understanding that it is not to be made public:-

"In the year 1860 I was stationed at Banda, in Bundelcund, India. There was a good deal of sickness there at the time, and I was deputed along with a medical officer to proceed to the nearest railway station at that time Allahabad, in charge of a sick officer. I will call myself Brown, the medical officer Jones, and the sick officer Robertson. We had to travel very slowly, Robertson being carried by coolies in a doolie, and on this account we had to halt at a rest-house, or pitch our camp every evening. One evening, when three marches out of Banda, I had just come into Robertson's room about midnight to relieve Jones, for Robertson was so ill that we took it by turns to watch him, when Jones took me aside and whispered that he was afraid our friend was dying, that he did not expect him to live through the night, and though I urged him to go and lie down, and that I would call him on any change taking place, he would not leave. We both sat down and watched. We had been there about an hour when the sick man moved and called out. We both went to his bedside, and even my inexperienced eyes saw that the end was near. We were both standing on the same side of the bed, furthest away from the door.

"Whilst we were standing there the door opened, and an elderly lady entered, went straight up to the bed, bent over it, wrung her hands and wept bitterly. After a few minutes she left; we both saw her face. We were so astonished that neither of us thought of speaking to her, but as soon as she passed out of the door I recovered myself and, as quickly as possible, followed her, but could not find a trace of her. Robertson died that night. We were then about thirty miles from the nearest cantonment, and except the rest-house in which we were, and of which we were the only occupants, there was not a house near us. Next morning we started back to Banda, taking the corpse with us for burial.

"Three months after this Jones went to England on leave, and took with him the sword, watch, and a few other things which had belonged to the deceased to deliver to his family. On arrival at Robertson's home, he was shown into the drawing-room. After waiting a few minutes, a lady entered-the same who had appeared to both of us in the jungle in India; it was Robertson's mother. She told Jones that she had had a vision that her son was dangerously ill, and had written the date, etc., down, and on comparing notes they found that the date, time, etc., agreed in every respect.

"People to whom I have told the story laugh at me, and tell me that I must have been asleep and dreamed it, but I know I was not, for I remember perfectly well standing by the bedside when the lady appeared."

* * *