In the following case the name of the agent is withheld from publication, though known to Mr. Myers who reports the case; the percipient is the Rev. W. Stainton-Moses. The agent goes on to state:—
“One evening early last year (1878), I resolved to try to appear to Z. (Mr. Moses) at some miles distant. I did not inform him beforehand of my intended experiment, but retired to rest shortly before midnight with thoughts intently fixed on Z., with whose room and surroundings, however, I was quite unacquainted. I soon fell asleep and woke up the next morning unconscious of anything having taken place. On seeing Z. a few days afterwards I inquired, ‘Did anything happen at your rooms on Saturday night?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘a great deal happened. I had been sitting over the fire with M., smoking and chatting. About 12:30 he rose to leave, and I let him out myself. I returned to the fire to finish my pipe when I saw you sitting in the chair just vacated by him. I looked intently at you, and then took up a newspaper to assure myself I was not dreaming, but on laying it down I saw you still there. While I gazed without speaking, you faded away. Though I imagined you must be fast asleep in bed at that hour, yet you appeared dressed in your ordinary garments, such as you usually wear every day.’ ‘Then my experiment seems to have succeeded,’ I said. ‘The next time I come ask me what I want, as I had fixed on my mind certain questions to ask you, but I was probably waiting for an invitation to speak.’
“A few weeks later the experiment was repeated with equal success, I, as before, not informing Z. when it was made. On this occasion he not only questioned me upon the subject which was at that time under very warm discussion between us, but detained me by the exercise of his will, some time after I had intimated a desire to leave. As on the former occasion no recollection remained of the event, or seeming event, of the preceding night.”
Mr. Moses writes, September 27th, 1885, confirming this account. Mr. Moses also says that he has never on any other occasion seen the figure of a living person in a place where the person was not.
The next case, while presenting features similar to the last, differs from it in this respect: that there are two percipients. It is copied from the manuscript book of the agent, Mr. S. H. B.
Mr. B. writes:—“On a certain Sunday evening in November, 1881, having been reading of the great power which the human will is capable of exercising, I determined with the whole force of my being that I would be present in spirit in the front bedroom, on the second floor of a house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance, Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C. V., aged respectively twenty-five and eleven years. I lived at this time at 23 Kildare Gardens, a distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road, and I had not mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to either of the above named ladies, for the simple reason that it was only on retiring to rest upon Sunday night that I made up my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I would be there was one o’clock in the morning, and I also had a strong intention of making my presence perceptible.
“On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in question, and in the course of conversation (without any allusion to the subject on my part), the elder one told me that on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke her little sister who also saw me. I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most decidedly in the affirmative; and upon my inquiring the time of the occurrence, she replied about one o’clock in the morning.”
Miss Verity’s account is as follows:—
“On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our house in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr. B. in my room about one o’clock. I was perfectly awake and was much terrified. I awoke my sister by screaming, and she saw the apparition herself. Three days after, when I saw Mr. B., I told him what had happened; but it was some time before I could recover from the shock I had received, and the remembrance is too vivid to be ever erased from my memory.
“L. S. Verity.”