THE PSYCHIC FACULTY.
I think the seeing, hearing, or feeling of psychic phenomena is determined by the Phenomena themselves, and that the latter themselves select the person to whom they wish to become manifest—hence there is no actual psychic faculty. I have, for example, in a haunted house, seen the phenomenon on one night and not on another, though on both occasions other people in the room have witnessed it. There are no end of other instances, too, in which people, who see apparitions on one occasion, do not see them on another, although the manifestations are of a precisely similar nature.
PHANTOM COACHES, CLOCKS, SHIPS, ETC.
Phantom coaches, clocks, ships, etc., are merely illusionary accessories to help carry out the design of Elementals. A coach was said at one time to haunt a road in Monmouthshire, and there are numerous cases of similar hauntings in different parts of England.
From time to time, too, phantom ships are reputed to have been seen off the North Cornish coast, whilst there is hardly a coast in the world that has not been visited by them. As they are usually seen before maritime catastrophes, they undoubtedly belong to the order of Clanogrians, with which I accordingly classify them.
PHANTASMS IN MINES.
In certain mining districts, after work hours, the miners say they hear the sounds of knocking and picking proceeding from the levels they have just vacated, and they declare it is "The Buccas" at work, the Buccas being a species of Neutral Elemental (closely allied to the Pixie) peculiar to mines. I have never heard of any of the miners seeing the Buccas, though several have spoken to me of the noises they have heard.
Deserted old mines are often alleged to be haunted, and I have been told that if one stands by the mouth of an empty shaft on a still night, one can hear the rolling of the Buccas' barrows and the thud, thud, of the Buccas' picks. Interesting accounts of similar phenomena are given in Carne's Tales of the West and Hunt's Popular Romances of the West of England.
Another species of ghost, allied, perhaps, to the Clanogrian, is a blue, luminous hand that appears in various parts of the mine before a catastrophe; sometimes it is seen climbing ropes, sometimes resting on the edge of one of the cages, and sometimes hovering in mid-air with a finger pointed at the doomed men.
Certain mines in France are haunted by a white hare that appears with the same purport, whilst in Germany the miners are haunted by Elementals of the Pixie order, called respectively Kobolds and Knauffbriegen, that play all sorts of mischievous pranks (very often of a dangerous nature) on the miners. Mines are, in addition, of course, subjected to all the ordinary forms of hauntings.