Elliott O'Donnell

“ I awoke with a violent start, just as the clock on the landing outside solemnly struck two. The house was wrapped in complete silence, and, beyond a few occasional creakings on the stairs and in—so I fancied—the recess of the window, I could hear nothing. The sky, which had been covered with a thick coating of grey mist all the day, had cleared, and a silvery stream of moonlight, pouring in through the open window, flooded that side of the room on which stood the bog-oak chest. ”

“ Can it be that it is, after all, the little learning that makes the man the fool?
But to continue. The hour of midnight—that hour erroneously supposed to be the one when psychic phenomena usually show themselves—passed, and I anxiously awaited for [p.138] what I felt every moment might now produce.
About one o'clock the temperature in the cellars suddenly grew so cold that my teeth chattered, and I then heard, as I thought, in the front hall, a tremendous crash as if all the crockery in the house had been dashed from some prodigious height in one big pile on the floor. ”

“ By spirit, I mean the mere animal side of man's nature—that Force, which is solely directed to the attainment and furtherance of carnal desires; by soul, that Force, which recognizes and strives after all that tends to make the mind pure and beautiful. ”

“ Sometimes, a number of feet are seen moving backwards and forwards under the curtain, and, occasionally, a very ugly but unmistakeably material head (wearing a mask) is poked through between the drawn curtains, much, of course, to the horror of the more timid of the audience, who are only too ready to believe the declaration of the medium and his confederates, that the head is that of some Earth-bound Spirit.
The darkness of the room—for séances are seldom held in the light—facilitates every manner of trickery, whilst the window, cabinet, and door all furnish easy means of entrance and exit. ”

“ My attention being drawn to a bright object in one corner of my room, I sat up in bed and looked at it, when to my horror I saw a spherical mass of vibrating, yellow-green light suddenly materialise into the round head of Something half human, half animal, and wholly evil! ”

“ They are probably the most terrifying of all apparitions, as, apart from the grotesqueness of their bodies, the expression in their eyes is invariably diabolical; they seem, indeed, to be animated with an intense, an absolutely unlimited, animosity to every form of earthly life. Why, I cannot, of course, say, unless it is that they are jealous of both man and beast, whom they might possibly regard as the usurpers of a sphere which was at one time strictly confined to themselves. My first experience of this kind of phantasm occurred when I was a boy. ”

“ I think the seeing, hearing, or feeling of psychic phenomena is determined by the Phenomena themselves, and that the latter themselves select the person to whom they wish to become manifest—hence there is no actual psychic faculty. I have, for example, in a haunted house, seen the phenomenon on one night and not on another, though on both occasions other people in the room have witnessed it. There are no end of other instances, too, in which people, who see apparitions on one occasion, do not see them on another, although the manifestations are of a precisely similar nature. ”

“ As, however, the phantasms of so many murderers and vicious people have been seen in forms more or less resembling those people when alive, I am inclined to attribute the apparitions of animals either to the earth-bound spirits of the animals themselves, or to Impersonating and Vice Elementals, whilst to the latter I attribute the entire sub-human and sub-animal type of psychic phenomenon—such, for example, as the pig-headed ghost of Guilsborough. ”

“ The phantasm is, after all, only the image of the spirit or soul; it is not actually the spirit or soul itself, any more than the man we see walking about Regent Street in a silk hat and frock-coat is actually the man himself; the latter is an abstract quantity, compounded of spirit, soul, and intelligence—what we see is merely an outward concrete form, whereby we are able to identify that abstract quantity. So it is with the superphysical ego. ”

“ Cayley felt an icy current of air pass right through her, and, glancing down, saw, to her horror, a misty something crouching against the trunk of the tree and peering up at her. She couldn't tell what it was, its shape being altogether too indistinct, but from the fact that it impressed her with sensations of the utmost terror and loathing, she realised that it was something both diabolical and malignant. At this moment her horse shied, and she knew nothing more till she found herself with a sprained ankle, lying on the ground close to the tree. ”

“ We have come to the open space with the dark, forbidding houses, when I have slipped just as two savage-looking men in red caps have dashed out on us. My companion has attempted [p.54] to escape; they have pursued her, and with the wails of her death-agony in my ears I have awakened. Can it be that these dreams are reminiscences of a former existence, of scenes with which I was once familiar? Or have they been vividly portrayed to me by an Elemental? ”

“ In cases of suicide, too, I think the nature of the Phantasms that subsequently appears largely depends on the life led by the suicide—if vicious the hauntings would be due to his earth-bound spirit, if moral to an Impersonating Elemental, but in either case Vice Elementals [p.91] would in all probability be attached to the spot, when the hauntings would at once become dual (which so frequently happens) . Where the suicide is a criminal lunatic or epileptic imbecile, I believe the phenomenon seen is his or her actual spirit—I do not think such people have souls. ”

“ The head was covered with a mass of tow-coloured, matted hair; the face was entirely clean-shaven. The thin lips, which were wreathed in a wicked leer, displayed very long, pointed teeth. But it was the eyes, which were fixed on mine with a steady stare, that arrested and riveted my attention. In hue they were of a light green, in expression they were hellish, for no other word can so adequately express the unfathomable intensity of their diabolical glee, and, as I gazed at them in helpless fascination, my blood froze. ”

“ We were all busily engaged in discussing our programme for the day when the phantasm appeared, and had, certainly, not been thinking of Miss D.
I do not think, then, that Phantasms of the Living are in any way attributable to telepathy, but that, like all other phantasms, they are purely superphysical. I have often been to haunted houses where the nature of the haunting was entirely unknown to me, and witnessed the same phenomena that I have subsequently learned have been experienced by countless other people. ”

“ In my book, The Haunted Houses of London, I gave several instances of the apparitions of animals, including that of a dear old dog of mine that appeared to me in York Road, London, and of a parrot that was seen standing on the shoulders of a lady near Clifton.
Although it is only too apparent that animals have not man's capacity for appreciating what is morally beautiful—in other words, have no souls—I think their intelligence, sagacity, and faithfulness ensures a future life of happiness to them with as great a certainty as "soul" entails a happy futurity to us. ”

“ He points to the root of a tree, where I perceive a huge green wooden wheel, that suddenly commences to roll. In an instant the forest is alive with grey archers, who fire a volley of arrows at the wheel, and endeavour to stop it. An arm is thrown round me, I am swung off the ground, and when I alight on the earth again it is to find myself on a flight of winding stone steps, in what I suppose is a very lofty tower. ”

“ How to classify this phenomenon, I must confess I am somewhat puzzled. It does not appear to me to belong altogether to the order of Vagrarian, and yet I know of no other species of phantasm to which it is more nearly allied. This type of ghost, i.e., the Vagrarian, is very often seen by children. It is a species of Elemental, and is in my opinion a survival (or descendant) of the earliest attempts at life on this planet—possibly an experiment in forms of life half physical, half superphysical—prior to the creation and selection of animal and vegetable life as it is known to us. ”

“ A relative of mine, once a year, always hears the sound of barking over the grave of a very favourite fox-terrier, whilst another relative has on more than one occasion seen the phantasm of a black spaniel to which she was very much attached. ”

“ As Garth refused to sleep in the room again, a valet of one of the visitors was put there, and he experienced precisely the same phenomenon.
Garth constantly saw the phantasm of the man in various parts of the building. Sometimes she would meet him face to face on a staircase, sometimes he would creep stealthily after her, down one of the numerous, gloomy corridors. ”

“ For every night I hear not only the strangest noises in my room, but the pattering of stealthy footsteps in the passage—sounds which I feel certain could neither be produced by rats nor the wind. Indeed, sir, I can't bear being left alone in the basement of the house after dusk, as I have the feeling that something uncanny walks about the house. ”

“ The clothes are not, of course, material clothes any more than the body is a material body—they are mere accessories assumed, so to speak, to make the image more complete, and to facilitate the question of identity. It is surely not difficult to understand that the Force which has the power to manifest itself at all, has the power to manifest itself in the most suitable guise. ”

“ In the case of murder, whereas, I think it quite possible that the spirit of the actual murderer appears, I think it highly unlikely that the soul of his victim (save, of course, where the latter has led a vicious life) is equally earth-bound, but that what we see is merely an impersonating Elemental, who, in company with the earth-bound soul of the homicide, nightly (or periodically) re-enacts the tragedy. ”

“ Sometimes the noises heard at the Parsonage were like the scratchings, not of a cat, but of [p.128] a tiger, on the inner walls of the house, whilst at other times they resembled a shower of copper coins promiscuously falling. One Sunday night, about the time Mr. Stewart came into residence, there were heard in the Parsonage noises like the shifting about of heavy furniture. So that one who heard the disturbances said, 'Well! I do wonder our new vicar should have his house set to rights on a Sunday!' There was not, however, a living soul in the house. ”

“ And here, in the cellars, far removed from prying eyes and sunlight, here, under the clammy, broken cement floor, here was an ideal sepulchre ready for the use of any murderer. [p.136] He had only to poke his nose half-way down the steps to be struck with the excellence of the idea, and to hurry back for pick and shovel to make the job complete.
The longer I lingered in the cellars, the more firmly I became convinced that they had at one time or another witnessed some secret burial. Dare I remain down there and wait for the phenomena? ”

“ Though I think it quite possible that the souls of the virtuous and spiritual-minded remain earth-bound for a short space after death, I do not think that, when once they are removed to other spheres, they can, under any circumstances, return. There can be no going back when once they have begun the slow, but sure process of spiritual evolution which will lead them to Paradise. ”

“ The house in question, though furnished, had been standing empty for some long time, and when I entered it alone one evening about nine o'clock, I was at once impressed with the musty atmosphere. My first act, therefore, was to open the windows on the top landing. The house consisted of three storeys and a basement, twelve bed and four reception rooms, with the [p.133] usual kitchen offices. I had had no definite information as to the nature of the hauntings, so that I came to the house with a perfectly unbiassed mind, and under conditions that excluded any possibility of suggestion. ”

“ I once recollect having a very vivid dream in which I saw a man, with whom I was slightly acquainted, thrown from his horse and terribly mutilated. The horse looked so evil, and acted with such an extraordinary amount of diabolical cunning, that I have always felt suspicious of horses since. ”

“ That the famous Irish Banshee, like the Drummer and Pipers of Scotland, the Death Candles of Wales, and the various English Family Ghosts, is the work of a species of Elemental, to which I have given the name, "Clanogrian," I have no doubt. The Celtic word Banshee, meaning the woman of the barrow, may in all probability account for the popular idea that whenever a member of one of the old Irish clans dies, their doom is foretold (to any or every member of the family but themselves) by a series of wails, in a woman's voice, [p.24] the phantasm of the woman herself being sometimes seen. ”

“ A phantasm, in my opinion, is a phenomena that cannot be explained by any physical laws. It is an objective—something, that can materialise and dematerialise at will, that can sometimes emit sounds, sometimes move material objects, and sometimes (though rarely) commit acts of physical violence on material objects. It can produce various sensations on living material bodies, whilst it is, in itself, though sometimes sensible and rational, as far as we know, always [p.144] insensible to physical action. ”

“ To the Benevolent Creative Powers, then, we owe everything that tends to man's happiness (and what is more necessary to real happiness than temperance and morality) , whilst to the Evil Creative Powers are due all diseases, crimes, and cruelties—everything, in fact, that is injurious to health and responsible for suffering, either mental or physical. ”