From MRS. W. O. S.
"ALBANY, September 27th, 1888.
"On the morning of September 4 I was suddenly awakened out of a sound sleep by my husband's calling to me from an adjoining room. Before I answered him I was struck with the fact that although the green shade to his window was drawn down, his room seemed flooded by a soft yellow light, while my chamber, with the window on same side as his, and with the shade drawn up, was dark. The first thing I said was, 'What is that light?' He replied he didn't know. I then got up and went into his room, which was still quite light. The light faded away in a moment or two. The shade was down all the time. When I went back to my room I saw that it was a few moments after four."
In answer to further questions, Mrs. W. O. S. adds:—
"October 16th, 1888.
"In regard to the light in my husband's room, it seemed to me to be perhaps more in the corner between his window and my door, although it was faintly distributed through the room. When I first saw the light (lying in bed) it was brilliant, but I only commanded a view of the corner of his room, between his window and my door. When I reached the door the light had begun to fade, though it seemed brighter in the doorway where I stood than elsewhere. My husband seemed greatly perplexed, and said, 'How strange! I thought surely there was a woman in my room.' I said, 'Did you think it was I?' He said, 'At first, of course, I thought so, but when I rubbed my eyes I saw it was not. It looked some like Mrs. B——' (another patient of his,—not the girl who died that night). He, moreover, said that the figure never seemed to look directly at him, but towards the wall beyond his bed; and that the figure seemed clothed in white, or something very light. That was all he said, except that later, when he knew the girl was dead, and I asked him if the figure at all resembled her, he said, 'Yes, it did look like her, only older.'"[125]
So far the instances quoted belong to what may be called the normal type of collective hallucination. In the last case, indeed, one percipient saw less than the other, but that may have been due merely to the fact that she awoke later. In the three cases which follow the impressions produced upon the percipients were diverse, and there is no evidence that they were simultaneous. In the first of the three cases, indeed, the circumstances strongly suggest that the mind of one percipient was influenced by the other. But in the last case, where the percipients were far apart, and their impressions markedly different, it seems reasonable to conjecture—their interest in the agent being equal—that the results produced were in each case directly referable to the dying man.
The narrative which follows was originally printed in July 1883, in an account written by the Warden, entitled "The Orphanage and Home, Aberlour, Craigellachie." It will be observed that the account, though written in the third person, is actually first hand.