According to Adolphe d'Assier, member of the Bordeaux Academy of Sciences, there is no doubt that the existence of the personality in animals as a separate appearance is established, and as it is a replica of the external form of the animal, he regards it as a living and phantasmal image.[168] He cites the following stories in support of his theory.
"Towards the end of 1869, finding myself at Bordeaux, I met one evening a friend who was going to a magnetic séance, and asked me to accompany him. I accepted his invitation, desiring to see magnetism at close quarters. The séance presented nothing remarkable. I was, however, struck with one unexpected circumstance. Towards the middle of the evening one of the persons present, having noticed a spider on the floor, crushed it with his foot.
"'Ah!' cried the medium at the same moment, 'I see the spirit of the spider escaping.'
"In the language of mediums, as we know, the word spirit designates that which I have called the posthumous phantom.
"'What is the form of the spirit?' asked the hypnotiser.
"'It has the form of a spider,' answered the medium.'"
This little incident, which recalls the ghost of a flea pictured by William Blake, the artist, and Dr. Reichenbach's dying mouse, led d'Assier to study the question of the duplication of personality among domestic animals. After some investigation he was sure that the medium's vision of a spirit spider was the reality, and he quotes other examples of phantasmal doubles.
On April 18th, 1705, M. Milanges de la Richardière, son of an advocate to the Parliament of Paris, when riding through Noisy-le-Grand, was surprised when his horse came to a dead stop in the middle of the road. At the same moment he saw a shepherd, of sinister countenance, carrying a crook, and accompanied by two black dogs with short ears. The man said, "Go home, sir. Your horse will not go forward."
At first the rider laughed, and then finding he could not make his horse advance an inch, he was forced to return, against his will. Some days later he was taken ill, and doctors were called in, who finding that his complaint did not yield to ordinary remedies, began to talk of sorcery. Young Milanges then confessed to his meeting with the strange shepherd and his dogs, and a few days later, to his surprise, when entering his own room, he saw the shepherd sitting in an arm-chair, dressed as he had seen him before, holding the crook still in his hand, and with the two black dogs by his side. In his terror the young man called for his servants, but they could not see the phantom man and animals.
At about ten o'clock the same night, however, the ghostly shepherd flung himself at the young man, who drew a knife from his pocket and made five or six cuts at his adversary's face.