Frank Podmore

“ There are two main points in which the coincident hallucinations now under consideration differ from the mass of the experimental evidence: (1) the distance over which the force is assumed to operate is very much greater, (2) in the experimental cases it is the idea actively present to the agent—the image of the card or number—which intrudes into the consciousness of the percipient; but in these other cases the actual percept represents what can at most have occupied but a subordinate place in the thoughts of the presumed agent—to wit, his own personal appearance. ”

“ Though not so common as dreams, hallucinations, it may be objected, are of sufficiently frequent occurrence to render a chance coincidence not impossible. To justify the inference that the Prince's vision, and the other similar visions preserved in our records, really point to a causal connection with the death of the person represented, we must be able to show that coincidences of this kind are more numerous than the frequency of noncoincident hallucinations would account for. The census gives us the material for the calculation required. ”

“ But on the one hand, the frequency of non-coincidental hallucinations may be much greater, owing to the operation of forgetfulness, than the census would indicate; on the other hand, there may have been much more exaggeration in the coincidences than we have allowed for.
It is scarcely conceivable that any error in our estimate of the rate of forgetfulness should be sufficient to affect the conclusion to a material extent. ”

“ It is clear that forgetfulness has seriously vitiated the results. After a careful estimate of all the circumstances the committee came to the conclusion that to arrive at the actual number of hallucinations experienced by the persons questioned, the numbers given should be multiplied by at least 4, and possibly more. [7]
If we include only recognised and realistic apparitions of the human figure, and subtract all doubtful cases, all cases occurring before the age of ten, and all cases where the percipient had more than one similar experience, we find that we have 322 cases to deal with. ”

“ The memory of a mental attitude now outgrown is apt to be shortlived, and it is perhaps not superfluous to point out that until some twenty or thirty years ago, say, there were only two explanations of such occurrences commonly recognised. By the majority of the educated classes they were dismissed as mere inventions of the popular imagination, like the tales of elves, nymphs, fauns, hobgoblins, and the whole tribe of fairyland. In the belief of the people they were held to be what they seemed, the authentic appearances of the dead—certissimæ mortis imagines. ”

“ And in most of the spontaneous cases, it must be remembered, the emotional energy liberated, on which the strength of the telepathic impulse seems to depend, must be immeasurably greater than in tedious experiments with cards and pictures. To a man whose experience of illumination was restricted to a rushlight it would appear incredible that the same familiar energy could cross the gulf which separates the earth from Sirius. ”

“ He was in his usual dress, and is not a man to be easily mistaken for any one else. Thinking he had brought some letters for me, I rose hastily and went towards the window calling to him and waving my hand to him, partly in greeting and partly as a sign for him to go to the hall door, but when I reached the window I was surprised not to see him. ”

“ But the spontaneous hallucinations of normal healthy persons are more pertinent to our present enquiry than these post-somnambulic visions. The late Professor Sidgwick, at the instance of the Congress of Experimental Psychology which met in Paris in 1889, with the aid of a committee of members of the Society for Psychical Research, instituted a census of spontaneous hallucinations of the sane. ”

“ Apart from their interest for psychologists generally as representing an incursion into a field hitherto practically unexplored—the hallucinations of sane and healthy persons [6] —the results of the census have an important bearing upon the evidence for the telepathic hypothesis. As already pointed out, in most experiments at close quarters we can calculate with some approach to exactness the probabilities against the results coinciding by chance; our difficulty in such cases is to eliminate the possible operation of hyperaesthesia, etc. ”

“ I have seen a lady, some time after being awakened, gratefully accept a blank card as a photograph of a friend: I have myself persuaded an educated man, in full possession apparently of his normal senses, to mistake blue for green and yellow for pink. ”

“ So far from being forgotten, the hallucinations coinciding with death appear to be remembered too well. It is clear that as the experience recedes into the past the closeness of the coincidence is apt to be magnified, or the narrative in some other way unconsciously improved. ”

“ The man in the street when he hears the word probably thinks of Huxley's Mrs. A., and of Goethe's butt, Nicolai, the Berlin bookseller: and in both these cases the hallucinations were symptoms of maladies for which the sufferers were under medical treatment. It is only within the last generation that even medical men have come to recognise that hallucinations may occur amongst sane and healthy people; that they are indeed of much more frequent occurrence, say, than smallpox or typhoid fever, and that they may imply no greater functional disturbance than a toothache or a cold. ”

“ It will be seen that three quarters of the visual hallucinations represented a lifelike human figure, in the majority of cases known to the percipient. It will further be noted that, in view of the comparatively short period of our waking hours spent in bed, a disproportionately large number of the hallucinations occurred under such conditions—a fact due no doubt largely to the quiescence and freedom from disturbance obtaining. ”

“ That hallucinations thus imposed are really seen there can be little doubt; they are even amenable in some cases to the usual optical tests, and can be magnified by a lens, or reflected in a mirror, or give rise to after-images. With a good subject there is apparently no limit to this power to perceive suggested hallucinations. Edmund Gurney, following the example of some Continental hypnotists, caused by this means a lifelike apparition of himself to appear to an astonished servant girl. ”

“ But the figures cannot, it must be premised, be taken at their face value. If we turn again to the table quoted on page 104 we shall note, as a significant fact, that the hallucinations recorded as occurring during the previous ten years approach pretty nearly to the sum of all the rest. Further, on a closer analysis of the records the committee found that the most recent year was more prolific than the rest of the decade; the most recent quarter again was more prolific than the other quarters; the most recent month more prolific than the rest of the quarter. ”

“ For within the last generation our knowledge of the subject has been increased by two methods. In the first place an increasing familiarity with hypnotism has enabled us to reproduce hallucinations at will. A subject in the somnambulic stage of the hypnotic sleep will not merely see and hear what he is hidden to see or hear at the time ”

“ Mrs. ——— has had no visual hallucinations except on the occasions mentioned.
It will be noticed that the dress of the apparition represented that in which the percipient was accustomed to see Mr. Godfrey, not the dress which he was actually wearing at the time. If the image in these cases is in fact nothing but the outward expression of the percipient's thought, this result is of course what we should naturally expect to find.
The next case is remarkable because three persons in the house appear to have been affected by the agent's experiment. Mr. F. W. Rose had, he tells us, mesmerised Mrs. ”

“ As a contrast with the method pursued by our committee, it may be mentioned that the French astronomer, M. Flammarion, inserted a similar question in several Parisian papers. asking readers in the event of their having had no such impressions, to reply to him on a post-card. In the event he received 2456 negative and 1824 affirmative answers ”

“ In the case next to be quoted, we have accounts from both agent and percipient written before the result was known. The case, moreover, presents other features of interest. Miss Danvers and Mrs. Fleetwood (both names are fictitious) are ladies who were well known to the late Frederic Myers. He asked Miss Danvers to endeavour to appear to Mrs. Fleetwood without communicating her intention to that lady; On june 20, 1894, he received the following letter, dated 19th June, with two enclosures:
No. ”

“ But fortunately we are not compelled to make the violent transition referred to; for some of the most remarkable hallucinations of which we have authentic records have been produced experimentally. Some instances of the kind were published in Phantasms of the Living. It was after reading the accounts there given that Mr. Clarence Godfrey, a friend of my own, determined to make a similar experiment on his own account. He wrote to me on the 16th November, 1886, as follows:
No. ”

“ See Proceedings, S. P. R., vol. x.. pp. 210 and 243. ↑ For full details of the estimates cited in the text, the reader is referred to the "Report of the Census Committee," Proceedings, S. P. R., vol. x., pp. 207–251. ↑ Studies in Physical Research, by F. Podmore, pp. 249–252. ↑ These details are taken from notes made by me immediately after the interview. ↑ Journal, S. P. R., May, 1896. ↑ Mrs. A., who has just read this. seems to think now that the two occurrences were separated by some weeks, not days as she wrote in her statement (Note by collector) . ”