Again, there are cases where the percipient states that a cloud of unreasonable depression fell upon him about the time of his friend's death at a distance, and continued until the actual news arrived; when, instead of becoming intensified, it lifted suddenly. In one or two such cases there was an actual presence or apparition, which seemed to hang about until the news arrived, and then disappeared. Or, on the other hand, there is sometimes a happy vision of the departed preluding the news, as though to prepare the percipient's mind for the shock (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 90 [735 A]). The suggested inference is that in such cases the spirit's attention is more or less continuously directed to the survivor until the news reaches him. This does not, of course, explain how the spirit learns as to the arrival of the news; yet it makes that piece of knowledge seem a less isolated thing.
Having thus referred to a number of cases where the apparition shows varying degrees of knowledge or memory, I pass on to the somewhat commoner type, where the apparition lacks the power or the impulse to communicate any message much more definite than that all-important one—of his own continued life and love. These cases, nevertheless, might be subdivided on many lines. Each apparition, even though it be momentary, is a phenomenon complex in more ways than our minds can follow. We must look for some broad line of demarcation, which may apply to a great many different incidents, while continuing to some extent the series which we have already been descending—from knowledge and purpose on the deceased person's part down to vagueness and apparent automatism.
Such a division—gradual, indeed, but for that very reason the more instructive—exists between personal and local apparitions; between manifestations plainly intended to impress the minds of certain definite survivors and manifestations in accustomed haunts, some of which, indeed, may be destined to impress survivors, but which degenerate and disintegrate into sights and sounds too meaningless to prove either purpose or intelligence.
Let us look, then, for these characteristics, not expecting, of course, that our series will be logically simple; for it must often happen that the personal and local impulses will be indistinguishable, as when the desired percipient is inhabiting the familiar home. But we may begin with some cases where the apparition has shown itself in some scene altogether strange to the deceased person.
We have had, of course, some cases of this type already. Such was the case of the apparition with the red scratch (Appendix VII. B); such too was the apparition in the Countess Kapnist's carriage (Appendix VII. E). Such cases, indeed, occur most frequently—and this fact is itself significant—among the higher and more developed forms of manifestation. Among the briefer, less-developed apparitions with which we have now to deal, invasions by the phantasm of quite unknown territory are relatively few. I will begin by referring to a curious case, where the impression given is that of a spiritual presence which seeks and finds the percipient, but is itself too confused for coherent communication (Mrs. Lightfoot's case, Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 453 [429 B]). It will be seen that this narrative is thoroughly in accordance with previous indications of a state of posthumous bewilderment supervening before the spirit has adjusted its perceptions to the new environment.
In cases like Mrs. Lightfoot's, where the percipient's surroundings are unknown to the deceased person, and especially in cases where the intimation of a death reaches the percipient when at sea, there is plainly nothing except the percipient's own personality to guide the spirit in his search. We have several narratives of this type. In one of these—Archdeacon Farler's, already referred to (p. 227), the apparition appears twice, the second appearance at least being subsequent to the death. It is plain that if in such a case the second apparition conveys no fresh intelligence, we cannot prove that it is more than a subjective recrudescence of the first. Yet analogy is in favour of its veridical character, since we have cases where successive manifestations do bring fresh knowledge, and seem to show a continued effort to communicate.[150]
Then, again, there are auditory cases where the phantasmal speech has occurred in places not known to the deceased person. (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 90, and vol. v. p. 455.)
One specially impressive characteristic of apparitions (as has been already remarked) is their occasional collectivity—the fact that more percipients than one sometimes see or hear the phantasmal figure or voice simultaneously. When one is considering the gradual decline in definiteness and apparent purpose from one group of apparitions to another, it is natural to ask whether this characteristic—in my view so important—is found to accompany especially the higher, more intelligent manifestations.
I cannot find that this is so. On the contrary, it is, I think, in cases of mere haunting that we oftenest find that the figure is seen by several persons at once, or else (a cognate phenomenon) by several persons successively. I know not how to explain this apparent tendency. Could we admit the underlying assumptions, it would suit the view that the "haunting" spirits are "earthbound," and thus somehow nearer to matter than spirits more exalted. Yet instances of collectivity are scattered through all classes of apparitions; and the irregular appearance of a characteristic which seems to us so fundamental affords another lesson how great may be the variety of inward mechanism in cases which to us might seem constructed on much the same type.
I pass on to a group of cases which are both personal and local; although the personal element in most of them—the desire to manifest to the friend—may seem more important than the local element—the impulse to revisit some accustomed haunt.