[149] For cases illustrating this, see Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v. p. 409 [§ 734]; also Proceedings S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 220; ibid. p. 218; Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 690; and Proceedings S.P.R., vol. x. p. 373 [§ 736 and 736 A, B and C].
[150] See for instance Journal S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 173.
[151] This analogy suggests itself still more forcibly in the remarkable case recorded in Journal S.P.R., vol. xii. p. 17. Here the visions, seen in a mirror, were perceived simultaneously, though not quite in the same way, by four witnesses, and lasted for an appreciable length of time.
[152] See the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol. i. p. 446 [741 A].
[153] In the case recorded in Proceedings S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 173 [§ 742], the decedent would appear to be satisfying both a local and a personal attraction. See also the cases given in Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 93, and vol. v. p. 437 [742 A], which are somewhat similar.
[154] See, however, Sir Arthur Beecher's case (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 110) where there was at least a rumour of some crime. In Mrs. M.'s case, too (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 178) and Mrs. Pennée's (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 60) there is some indication of past troubles in which the percipients, of course, were in no way concerned. But in no other cases has there been anything, as far as we know, which could trouble the departed spirit with importunate memories of his earthly home.
[155] For a discussion of this problem, illustrated by a large number of cases, see my article on "Retrocognition and Precognition" in the Proceedings S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 334-593.
[156] See, however, Mrs. Sidgwick's remarks (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. pp. 79-80), as to the rarity of any indication of intelligence in such sounds, and the possibility of reading more intelligence into them than they really possess. There is now, of course, more evidence as to these sounds than there was at the date of Mrs. Sidgwick's paper (1885).
[157] Thus Mrs. Sidgwick, even as far back as 1885 (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 142), writes: "I can only say that having made every effort—as my paper will, I hope, have shown—to exercise a reasonable scepticism, I yet do not feel equal to the degree of unbelief in human testimony necessary to avoid accepting, at least provisionally, the conclusion that there are, in a certain sense, haunted houses, i.e., that there are houses in which similar quasi-human apparitions have occurred at different times to different inhabitants, under circumstances which exclude the hypothesis of suggestion or expectation."
[158] This case is given in Appendix VII. G.