I have alluded in one of my former works to the only really satisfactory instance in which I have consciously projected my superphysical body, though I have made various attempts. My failures are, I think, due to the difficulty I experience in obtaining the necessary conditions of perfect tranquillity of mind and absolute physical silence. An interesting experiment I have tried, and in which I hope eventually to succeed, is as follows:—I lean my forehead against the door of a room in which several people are seated with cameras. Concentrating tremendously hard, I bring before my mind a vivid picture of the contents of that room. The picture becomes clearer and clearer, until I can see every little detail in it, when I suddenly find myself passing through the door into the brilliantly illuminated space beyond. An instant more, and I feel my presence would be revealed to the sitters, but at the critical moment something mysterious happens, and my superphysical ego is sharply recalled to my physical body.
Before I refer to my experiences with phantasms of the Dead, I think some allusions to death warnings by dreams and otherwise may be of interest.
When I was a little boy, I well remember a Miss C. coming into the room in which I was sitting, and observing to my companion, "I am sure something is going to happen to my mother, for as I was crossing the road just now I distinctly saw her standing on the edge of the pavement beckoning to me. As I approached, she suddenly vanished."
Two hours later Miss C. again came into my room. This time she was holding a telegram in her hand, and crying bitterly. "I was sure something would happen," she said: "my mother is dead. She died just about the time I saw her."
The house in which I was then staying was in Bath, and Miss C.'s mother died in Worcester.
The next instance of a phenomenon of this nature occurred years later, when I was an assistant master in a Preparatory School for the Royal Navy. I was chatting with the principal one night in his study, which was in the rear of the house, overlooking a somewhat dreary back garden. The headmaster was making some remark on the new regulations that were shortly to come in force with respect to the Entrance Examination to the Britannia, when he suddenly stopped short, and with a kind of gasping cry that made my blood run cold, pointed to the white window blind. "See!" he said, "see! it's my father! He's in his grave-clothes, signalling to me. Oh! my God! he must be dead!" He then sank back in his chair, breathing heavily. For some seconds there was a silence which to me, at any rate, was most painful; he then exclaimed, "It's gone now. Did you see it?"
I replied that I had not seen anything except a violent agitation of the blind, which agitation, curiously enough, he had not noticed. The next morning he received a telegram saying his father was dead; the latter had died about the time his phantasm had been seen by his son.
Though I cannot say I have any great faith in the majority of omens, such as spilling salt and seeing magpies, nevertheless there are some to which I do attach importance. The same Miss C., to whom I have just referred, told me one evening that she had just seen a winding-sheet in the candle, and that it pointed towards her. That same night she dreamed one of her teeth came out, and on it was a portrait of her brother Jack. The following day she received a telegram to the effect that Jack had died suddenly from an attack of apoplexy.
I have frequently seen phantasms of the dead both in haunted houses and elsewhere. One of the best friends I ever had was "K.," who was a fellow student with me when I was reading in Dublin. K., who came of a very distinguished military family, and was the great-nephew of the Baroness B., used often to chat with me about the possibilities of the future life.
"Look here," he said to me one night, "I'll make you a promise. If anything happens to me within the next few years I'll appear to you."