But I shall begin by referring to a small group of cases,[140] which I admit to be anomalous and non-evidential—for we cannot prove that they were more than subjective experiences—yet which certainly should not be lost, filling as they do, in all their grotesqueness, a niche in our series otherwise as yet vacant. If man's spirit is separated at death from his organism, there must needs be cases where that separation, although apparently, is not really complete. There must be subjective sensations corresponding to the objective external facts of apparent death and subsequent resuscitation. Nor need it surprise those who may have followed my general argument, if those subjective sensations should prove to be dreamlike and fantastic. Here, as so often in our inquiries, the very oddity and unexpectedness of the details—the absence of that solemnity which one would think the dying man's own mind would have infused into the occasion—may point to the existence of some reality beneath the grotesque symbolism of the transitional dream.
The transitional dream, I call it, for it seems to me not improbable—remote though such a view may be from current notions—that the passage from one state to another may sometimes be accompanied with some temporary lack of adjustment between experiences taking place in such different environments—between the systems of symbolism belonging to the one and to the other state. But the reason why I refer to the cases in this place is that here we have perhaps our nearest possible approach to the sensations of the spirit which is endeavouring to manifest itself;—an inside view of a would-be apparition. The narratives suggest, moreover, that spirits recently freed from the body may enjoy a fuller perception of earthly scenes than it is afterwards possible to retain, and that thus the predominance of apparitions of the recently dead may be to some extent explained.
We have, indeed, very few cases where actual apparitions give evidence of any continuity in the knowledge possessed by a spirit of friends on earth. Such evidence is, naturally enough, more often furnished by automatic script or utterance. But there is one case (which I give in Appendix VII. A) where a spirit is recorded as appearing repeatedly—in guardian-angel fashion—and especially as foreseeing and sympathising with the survivor's future marriage.
Among repeated apparitions this case at present stands almost alone; its parallels will be found when we come to deal with the persistent "controls," or alleged communicating spirits, which influence trance-utterance or automatic script. A case bearing some resemblance to it, however, is given in Proceedings S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 233, the main difference being that the repeated communications are there made in dream, and in Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v. p. 450, [714 A], is recorded another case, where the deceased person seems to make repeated efforts to impress on survivors a wish prompted by continued affection.
Less uncommon are the cases where an apparition, occurring singly and not repeated, indicates a continued knowledge of the affairs of earth. That knowledge, indeed, runs mainly, as we shall presently see, in two directions. There is often knowledge of some circumstance connected with the deceased person's own death, as the appearance of his body after dissolution, or the place of its temporary deposit or final burial. And there is often knowledge of the impending or actual death of some friend of the deceased person's. On the view here taken of the gradual passage from the one environment into the other, both these kinds of knowledge seem probable enough. I think it likely that some part of the consciousness after death may for some time be dreamily occupied with the physical scene. And similarly, when some surviving friend is gradually verging towards the same dissolution, the fact may be readily perceptible in the spiritual world. When the friend has actually died, the knowledge which his predecessor may have of his transition is knowledge appertaining to events of the next world as much as of this.
But apart from this information, acquired perhaps on the borderland between two states, apparitions do sometimes imply a perception of more definitely terrene events, such as the moral crises (as marriage, grave quarrels, or impending crimes) of friends left behind on earth. In Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 25 [716 A], is a case of impressive warning, in which the phantom was seen by two persons, one of whom had already had a less evidential experience.
In another case of similar type,[141] the message, while felt by the percipient to be convincing and satisfactory, was held too private to be communicated in detail. It is plain that just in the cases where the message is most ultimately veracious, the greatest difficulty is likely to be felt as to making it known to strangers.
I have already given a case (Appendix VII. A) where a departed spirit seems to show a sympathetic anticipation of a marriage some time before it is contemplated. In another case (Journal S.P.R., vol v. p. 10), the percipient, Mrs. V., describes a vision of a mother's form suspended, as it were, in a church where her son is undergoing the rite of confirmation. That vision, indeed, might have been purely subjective, as Mrs. V. was familiar with the departed mother's aspect; though value is given to it by the fact that Mrs. V. has had other experiences which included evidential coincidences.
From these instances of knowledge shown by the departed of events which seem wholly terrene, I pass to knowledge of events which seem in some sense more nearly concerned with the spirit-world. We have, as already hinted, a considerable group of cases where a spirit seems to be aware of the impending death of a survivor.[142] In some few of those cases the foreknowledge is entirely inexplicable by any such foresight as we mortals can imagine, but in the case given in Appendix VII. B, though the family did not foresee the death, a physician might, for aught we know, have been able to anticipate it. However explained, the case is one of the best-attested, and in itself one of the most remarkable, that we possess.
I place next by themselves a small group of cases which have the interest of uniting the group just recounted, where the spirit anticipates the friend's departure, with the group next to be considered, where the spirit welcomes the friend already departed from earth. This class forms at the same time a natural extension of the clairvoyance of the dying exemplified in some "reciprocal" cases (e.g. in the case of Miss W., where a dying aunt has a vision of her little niece who sees an apparition of her at the same time; see Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 253). Just as the approaching severance of spirit from body there aided the spirit to project its observation among incarnate spirits at a distance upon this earth, so here does that same approaching severance enable the dying person to see spirits who are already in the next world. It is not very uncommon for dying persons to say, or to indicate when beyond speech, that they see spirit friends apparently near them. But, of course, such vision becomes evidential only when the dying person is unaware that the friend whose spirit he sees has actually departed, or is just about to depart, from earth. Such a conjuncture must plainly be rare; it is even rather surprising that these "Peak in Darien" cases, as Miss Cobbe has termed them in a small collection which she made some years ago, should be found at all. We can add to Miss Cobbe's cases two of fair attestation. (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 93, and vol. xiv. p. 288 [718 A and B]).