The Rev. Mr. H. at home during the time had no particular experience of any kind. All that can be said is, that, it must have been about his usual time for starting for the office; he had sent a letter about his mail which he knew would then be received, and all the general routine and habit of his life would tend to direct his mind to that locality at that particular time. He was ill as he appeared to be to those who saw his appearance at the office, and very likely he was negligently dressed.
Why should two of those present have seen his apparition, and two others have failed to see it? For the simple reason that, as in ordinary thought-transference, or in the “willing game” some are good subjects, or percipients, and others are not. For the same reason that of ten persons making trial of Planchette-writing, the board will move for only two or three out of the whole number—that is, in only a few would the hands act automatically in response to a subliminal self; and for the same reason it may also be true that amongst several persons, in only a few of those present, can the sense of sight or hearing be effected by a phantasm.
In many instances, children, and in some instances, very young children, have been the percipients—children too young to perceive any difference between the phantasm and a real person, and who have accordingly addressed it and spoken of it as they would of a real person. Even animals, especially horses and dogs, have given unmistakable evidence—by crouching, trembling, and fright—of perceiving the same phantasms that have been seen by persons who were present with them. The phantom being, so to speak, in the air, it is perceived by those whose organization is so adjusted as to make it impressionable, and to constitute, to a greater or less degree, what is known as a sensitive.
Doubtless, on close examination, it would be found that persons capable of hypnotization, though they may never have been hypnotized, natural somnambulists, persons accustomed to vivid dreaming, reverie, abstraction, and kindred states, in other words, persons in whom the subliminal self sometimes gives indications of independent action, are most likely to have some marked psychical experience. It may be only once in a lifetime, and this one instance may be the perception of a phantasmal appearance.
In bringing to a close these examples of apparitions, I wish to introduce one which has specially impressed me. It was the experience of a child—it is reported by the percipient herself. The statement is singularly straightforward, and simple; something was done on account of the vision which impressed the circumstance upon others who did not see it, for prompt action founded upon what was seen, saved a life. I give it in the percipient’s own words, written to Mr. Gurney. It is from Mrs. Brettany, 2 Eckington Villas, Ashbourne Grove, Dulwich.
She writes:—
“November, 1884.
“When I was a child I had many remarkable experiences of a psychical nature, and which I remember to have looked upon as ordinary and natural at the time.
“On one occasion (I am unable to fix the date, but I must have been about ten years old) I was walking in a country lane at A., the place where my parents then resided. I was reading geometry as I walked along, a subject little likely to produce fancies, or morbid phenomena of any kind, when, in a moment, I saw a bedroom, known as the White Room in my home, and upon the floor lay my mother, to all appearances dead.
“The vision must have remained some minutes, during which time my real surroundings appeared to pale and die out; but as the vision faded actual surroundings came back, at first dimly, and then clearly. I could not doubt that what I had seen was real. So instead of going home, I went at once to the house of our medical man, and found him at home. He at once set out with me for my home, on the way putting questions I could not answer, as my mother was to all appearances well when I left home.