As I am aware how difficult it is, except where the appearance is seen by more persons than one, to distinguish cases of actual self-seeing from those of spectral illusion, I do not linger longer in this department; but, returning to the analogous subject of doppelgängers, I will relate a few curious instances of this kind of phenomena:—
Stilling relates that a government-officer, of the name of Triplin, in Weimar, on going to his office to fetch a paper of importance, saw his own likeness sitting there, with the deed before him. Alarmed, he returned home, and desired his maid to go there and fetch the paper she would find on the table. The maid saw the same form, and imagined that her master had gone by another road, and got there before her. His mind seems to have preceded his body.
The landrichter, or sheriff, F——, in Frankfort, sent his secretary on an errand. Presently afterward, the secretary re-entered the room, and laid hold of a book. His master asked him what had brought him back, whereupon the figure vanished, and the book fell to the ground. It was a volume of Linnæus. In the evening, when the secretary returned, and was interrogated with regard to his expedition, he said that he had fallen into an eager dispute with an acquaintance, as he went along, about some botanical question, and had ardently wished he had had his Linnæus with him to refer to.
Dr. Werner relates that Professor Happach had an elderly maid-servant, who was in the habit of coming every morning to call him, and on entering the room, which he generally heard her do, she usually looked at a clock which stood under the mirror. One morning, she entered so softly, that, though he saw her, he did not hear her foot. She went, as was her custom, to the clock, and came to his bedside, but suddenly turned round and left the room. He called after her, but she not answering, he jumped out of bed and pursued her. He could not see her, however, till he reached her room, where he found her fast asleep in bed. Subsequently, the same thing occurred frequently with this woman.
An exactly parallel case was related to me, as occurring to himself, by a publisher in Edinburgh. His housekeeper was in the habit of calling him every morning. On one occasion, being perfectly awake, he saw her enter, walk to the window, and go out again without speaking. Being in the habit of fastening his door, he supposed he had omitted to do so; but presently afterward he heard her knocking to come in, and he found the door was still locked. She assured him she had not been there before. He was in perfectly good health at the time this happened.
Only a few nights since, a lady, with whom I am intimately acquainted, was in bed, and had not been to sleep, when she saw one of her daughters, who slept in an upper room, and who had retired to rest some time before, standing at the foot of her bed. “H——,” she said, “what is the matter? what are you come for?” The daughter did not answer, but moved away. The mother jumped out of bed, but not seeing her, got in again: but the figure was still there. Perfectly satisfied it was really her daughter, she spoke to her, asking if anything had happened; but again the figure moved silently away, and again the mother jumped out of bed, and actually went part of the way up stairs: and this occurred a third time! The daughter was during the whole of this time asleep in her bed, and the lady herself is quite in her usual state of health—not robust, but not by any means sickly, nor in the slightest degree hysterical or nervous; yet she is perfectly convinced that she saw the figure of her daughter on that occasion, though quite unable to account for the circumstance. Probably the daughter was dreaming of the mother.
Edward Stern, author of some German works, had a friend who was frequently seen out of the body, as the Germans term it; and the father of that person was so much the subject of this phenomenon, that he was frequently observed to enter his house while he was yet working in the fields! His wife used to say to him, “Why, papa, you came home before;” and he would answer, “I dare say, I was so anxious to get away earlier, but it was impossible!”
The cook in a convent of nuns, at Ebersdorf, was frequently seen picking herbs in the garden, when she was in the kitchen and much in need of them.
A Danish physician, whose name Dr. Werner does not mention, is said to have been frequently seen entering a patient’s room, and on being spoken to, the figure would disappear, with a sigh. This used to occur when he had made an appointment which he was prevented keeping, and was rendered uneasy by the failure. The hearing of it, however, occasioned him such an unpleasant sensation, that he requested his patients never to tell him when it happened.
A president of the supreme court, in Ulm, named Pfizer, attests the truth of the following case: A gentleman, holding an official situation, had a son at Göttingen, who wrote home to his father, requesting him to send him, without delay, a certain book, which he required to aid him in preparing a dissertation he was engaged in. The father answered that he had sought but could not find the work in question. Shortly afterward, the latter had been taking a book from his shelves, when, on turning round, he beheld, to his amazement, his son just in the act of stretching up his hand toward one on a high shelf in another part of the room. “Hallo!” he exclaimed, supposing it to be the young man himself, but the figure disappeared; and, on examining the shelf, the father found there the book that was required, which he immediately forwarded to Göttingen; but before it could arrive there, he received a letter from his son, describing the exact spot where it was to be found.