Frank Podmore

“ We have relatively very few cases of the kind in our collection; and even if we grant that the instances reported to us have been diminished in number by the instinctive tendency, already pointed out, to reduce the interval between the death and the annunciatory vision, the number is still far too small to permit us to found any generalisation upon it. For it must be remembered that impressions which occur some days or even a week after the death offer much more scope for chance coincidence than those which fall within twelve hours of the death. ”

“ But even when two or three witnesses are prepared to attest the reality of the vision, it would be difficult now to maintain the older view that the thing seen is objective in the sense of being material, or even quasi-material, astral, metetherial, or whatever other name may be found for the hypothetical substance. Whatever the cause of the apparition, it will probably be recognised that it is in substance a hallucination—the stuff of which dreams are made—and has no more materiality, or quasi-materiality, than they. ”

“ We know of many cases in which impressions, after remaining latent through a period of weeks or even years, have ultimately emerged in sleep, crystal vision, or other form of automatism. But the reader will probably agree that in some of the narratives quoted such an explanation is at least improbable; and that the accumulation of a large number of similar instances would furnish an argument of some weight for the survival of human personality after the death of the body. The hypothesis of the emergence of latent memory can no doubt be applied in the following case. ”

“ But, on the other hand, we have good reason to believe that telepathic communication of all kinds is most readily established when, as in sleep or trance, the faculties which deal with the life of relation are in abeyance. We have no reason therefore for distrusting the accuracy of a dream story, on the sole ground that it imports sensational features of the kind referred to.
I propose to cite a few narratives in which information purporting to proceed from a deceased person, and beyond the conscious knowledge of the recipient, was communicated in dream or some allied state. ”

“ In the cases so far considered, which occurred within, at furthest, a few weeks after death, no information has been communicated beyond the fact of the death itself, and occasionally the circumstances and manner of the death, or the appearance of the deceased person at the time. But the popular conception of a ghost, a returning spirit, includes more than this. In traditional stories the spirit generally returns to communicate a definite message to the survivors. ”

“ It is, generally speaking, in the narratives which deal with remoter experiences that the more sensational details are apt to appear. In short, statements written down many years after the event to which they relate have a tendency to conform more closely to the traditional type. But though in the best attested accounts of waking hallucinations we can find few parallels to the repentant monk, the troubled miser, or the conscientious debtor of the popular imagination, we do in dreams find many cases where purpose and knowledge are shown which apparently point to the agency of the deceased. ”

“ Gurney the interpretation of the dream on the hypothesis of thought-transference from the living presented some difficulties: it seemed necessary to suppose that Mr. Wellington had dramatised his own fate at the moment of death. But we have since learnt that the head was given up to Mr. Wellington's friends on the following day, and a telepathic message from their minds is thus suggested as a possible explanation. [9]
Several cases have been reported to us in which a dying man has seen the figure of a friend, of whose death he could not have been aware by ordinary means. ”

“ Rose continued; "it 's a man. Who is it, I wonder? Who can be wandering about up here? We 'd better go and see." We started for the other hedge, which was, I should think, about 50 yards distant. We had a fox terrier with us; he growled, and his ruff stood up, and he refused to come. I cannot now remember whether my sister Edith walked across with us, or, being nervous, stayed by the fence. My impression is she came, but a trifle behind Rose and myself. Walking closer, I saw that it was a man, hanging apparently from an oak tree in front of some railings over a ditch. ”

“ That such indications practically occur only in dreams is not in itself a suspicious circumstance. Dreams no doubt, as already pointed out, have less ostensive value than waking visions, because of the greater scope for chance coincidence. ”

“ This is what we all three saw: a man's figure hanging from a branch of an oak tree, his arms and legs dangling apparently helplessly, and his head hung forward. but it was covered with something white. We could see the railings which ran behind the oak tree through the figure. When we got within 10 yards, my sister said, "Why, it 's gone." We stopped and looked, and there was nothing to be seen but the oak tree and fence. ”

“ However, the incident, as said, is by no means an isolated one, and the hypothesis of subconscious perception becomes less plausible the more numerous the instances which it is invoked to cover. In the next chapter we shall have to consider a case in which the skeleton of a man murdered forty years previously was discovered through a persistent dream. ”

“ Farmer was purely on a business footing, he thinks it unlikely that he had actually seen it.
In the following case the hypothesis of the revival in dream of a latent impression involves perhaps a higher degree of improbability.
Miss Whiting, the narrator, had been an intimate friend of Kate Field, the well-known American journalist, and was in 1899 bringing out a life of her deceased friend. Miss Whiting believes that she has frequently held communication with the spirit of Kate Field.
No. 50. From Miss Lilian Whiting [12]
8th August, 1899. ”

“ Further, it will be seen from the Census table that nearly half the human apparitions seen represented persons unknown to the percipients. Again, collective apparitions of the living, which constitute more than three fourths of the recognised apparitions shown in the table, are not as a rule seen under circumstances such as to suggest the agency of the person represented. A typical case is quoted in the Census Report. [21] Two sisters, playing the harmonium in an empty church, saw the figure of a third sister walk up the church and mysteriously disappear. ”

“ After all reasonable deductions have, however, been made, there will be found to remain a considerable number of well-attested apparitions which prima facie refer rather to the dead than to the living. ”

“ He has just appeared to me dressed in a white shirt, black clothes, and felt [misreported for satin] slippers, and told me that after leaving home he sewed a large roll of bills inside his grey shirt with a piece of my red dress and the money is still there." In a short time she fell into another swoon and when out of it demanded that somebody go to Dubuque and get the clothes. She was deathly sick, and is so yet. ”

“ Dolbear, Professor of Physics at Tufts College, Mass.,dreamt one night that he saw and spoke to a deceased acquaintance, Mr. Farmer, an electrician. In his dream Professor Dolbear asked for a test of identity, and Farmer held out his left hand, with the fingers bent in a very extraordinary way. On his relating the dream to Miss Farmer, Professor Dolbear learnt that this particular disposition of the fingers was a common trick on the part of the dead man. Professor Dolbear had, however, no recollection of ever seeing such a trick, and as his acquaintance with Mr. ”

“ For we cannot exclude the possibility that the percipient's impression may have had its origin in the minds of the survivors, mourning over the dead. Such an explanation is unmistakably indicated by the following narrative.
No. 42. From Mr. Stephen Peebles [2]
Satank, Colorado. January 2nd, 1894.
We live on a farm ten miles from Glenwood Springs. At Glenwood Springs a Mrs. Walz, whom my wife has known for some years, lives with her husband. She was the mother of two children, one an infant. This Mrs. Walz, our daughter (who is married and lives near us—a mile away) , and a Mrs. ”

“ Mrs. C., the medium mentioned, is not a professional medium, but a friend of the other ladies.
The incident took place in May, 1904, and the first account we give is copied from a letter written shortly afterwards by Mrs. A. to Mrs. Wilson, as follows:
No. 54. From Mrs. A. [24]
It was in my bedroom at B———, Switzerland. Mrs. C——— was the medium. She was seated facing the long mirror in my wardrobe, and we, that is C. [Mrs. P., sister of Mrs. A.] , A. [the daughter of Mrs. A.] , Mrs. H., and myself, were seated just behind her, also facing the mirror. Mrs. ”