A real figure seen under exceptional circumstances may at the time or in the light of subsequent events be regarded as a hallucination. Such a mistake is, as a rule, possible only out of doors; and the commonest form of it is when a figure is seen by the percipient resembling some friend believed to be at a distance, or in circumstances which make it difficult to suppose that the figure was of flesh and blood. A curious instance came under my notice recently. It was reported to me that a lady had seen in a certain provincial town the ghost of a friend at about the time of her death. The figure, accompanied by another figure, was seen in broad daylight at a distance of a few feet only; it was clearly recognised, and the proof of its non-reality lay in the complete absence of recognition in return. It was subsequently ascertained that the friend in question had actually been present in the flesh, with a companion, at the spot where the figures were seen, but that for sufficient reasons she desired to avoid recognition. Her death within a few days of the encounter was merely an odd coincidence.
Another kind of erroneous inference is worth noting. Cases are not infrequently quoted, as presumably telepathic, of a dream or vision embodying information demonstrably not within the conscious knowledge of the percipient. The inference that he cannot have obtained the information by normal means is clearly unsound, unless it can be shown that it was impossible for the information to have been received unconsciously. For it is well established that intelligence, even of events closely affecting the percipient, may enter through the external organs of sense and lie latent for days before emerging into consciousness. It is obvious that, for instance, many of the cases quoted in which an invalid became aware of news (e.g., of the death of a relative) which had been studiously withheld from him by those around may be thus explained. Whispers heard in sleep, or hints unconsciously received, may have betrayed the secret.[73]
Errors of Narration.
Of much greater importance than errors of observation or inference are those due to defects either in narration or memory. Deliberate deception amongst educated persons is no doubt comparatively rare, though it would perhaps be unwise to hold out any pecuniary inducement for the production of evidence. But there are those, like Colonel Capadose in Mr. Henry James' story The Liar, who tell ghost stories for art's sake, and on a slender basis of fact build up a large superstructure of fiction. And there are many more who, with a natural and almost pardonable desire to appear as the hero, or at least the raconteur, of a good story, or from the mere love of the marvellous, allow themselves to exaggerate the coincidences, adjust the dates, elaborate the details, or otherwise improve the too bare facts of an actual experience. This kind of embellishment, however, is probably more frequent in second-hand accounts, where the narrator speaks with less sense of responsibility, and, it may be added, of reality.
Again, a common form of inaccuracy is to quote as the experience of a friend one of those weird stories which are passed on from mouth to mouth in ordinary society—the inconvertible currency of psychical research. We all know these old friends—at a distance, for no one has ever succeeded in making their nearer acquaintance. There is the ghost at No. 50 B—— Square; the driver of the dream-hearse, recognised a year later in a lift, which fell straightway, with all its passengers, to the bottom of the hotel; the Form which accompanies the priest, or Quaker, or godly merchant to save him from robbery on his lonely nocturnal journeyings; the young lady who took part in some tableaux vivants whilst her body was lying cold in death—and all the rest of the phantom throng. Only a few months ago I heard one of them—it was the ghost of the lift—from the son of a doctor, who assured me that the incident occurred to one of his father's patients, and gave me the name of the foreign hotel which had been the scene of the disaster.[74]
Sometimes a story is improved by the narrator that it may the better serve for instruction and edification. This tendency is especially liable to distort the evidence in cases connected with death. It must be remembered that though we may view a coincident hallucination, for instance, as merely an instance of an idea transferred from a living mind, to the percipient it frequently represents the spirit of the dead. From a certain class of witnesses the account of such an incident is as little to be trusted as the text of an apocryphal gospel. It inevitably becomes a Tendenz-schrift, which reflects not the facts as they occurred, but the narrator's conception of what the facts ought to have been.
It is not necessary to dwell on these sources of error, for they are probably apparent to all; and to give illustrative cases would be superfluous, and perhaps invidious. But it is important to observe that stories so improved, whether from a desire to reinforce some theological tenet, or from the mere love of sensation, are apt to betray their origin in many different ways. Narrators of this kind rarely content themselves with the finer touches; the added ornaments are apt to be gross and palpable; the "spirit" will be made to speak words of warning or comfort; to intimate his testamentary dispositions; or even—in somewhat bolder flight of fancy—to leave a solid memento behind him. Now the authentic phantom is seldom either dramatic or edifying.
Errors of Memory.