Apparition

“ There is first the popular view, that the apparition is something belonging to the external world—that, like ordinary matter, it occupies and moves through space, and would be in the room whether the percipient were there to see it or not. ”

“ If it had been enough for the divine spirit to mingle with men, to show them a pattern life, and to touch them to higher things, an apparition would have been adequate, and no community of suffering would have been necessary. ”

“ I cannot tell what the simple apparition of the earth and sky mean to me; I think that at rare intervals one sees that they have an immense spiritual meaning, altogether unspeakable, and that they are the great helps, after all. ”

“ The apparition, which in the night hovers athwart the fleet near the Cape of Good Hope, is the grandest fiction in human composition; the invention his own! ”

“ If the apparition appear at a moment when the person seen is actively engaged elsewhere—it may be in writing a book, or preaching a sermon—what is it that is seen, and what is it that is writing or preaching? ”

“ This is, perhaps, one of the most remarkable and best-authenticated recent cases of Spectral Appearances which has ever been narrated. The various independent testimonies dove-tailing together so perfectly, centre in the leading supernatural fact—the actual apparition in the daytime of a person just departed this life by sudden death, seen not by one only, but by two people, simultaneously; and seen in company with the spirit of a very holy and renowned saint, the chosen patron of the youth who had just been drowned. ”

“ Less uncommon are the cases where an apparition, occurring singly and not repeated, indicates a continued knowledge of the affairs of earth. That knowledge, indeed, runs mainly, as we shall presently see, in two directions. ”

“ When you appeared before my eyes
Like ghost, like fleeting apparition,
Like genius of the purest grace. ”

“ I am persuaded that a child so educated would feel no terror at the sight of an apparition, more especially as there very rarely appears to be anything terrific in the aspect of these forms; they generally come in their “habits as they lived,” and appear so much like the living person in the flesh, that where they are not known to be already dead, they are frequently mistaken for them. ”

“ APPARITIONS. An apparition, strictly speaking, is merely an appearance (Lat. apparere, to appear) , the result of perception exercised on any stimulus of any of the senses. But in ordinary usage the word apparition denotes a perception (generally through the sense of sight) which cannot, as a rule, be shown to be occasioned by an object in external nature. We say “as a rule” because many so-called apparitions are merely illusions, i.e. ”

“ From all this, it follows that no apparition can take place without a sort of miracle, and without a concurrence, both extraordinary and supernatural, of the power of God who commands, or causes, or permits an angel, or a demon, or a disembodied soul to appear, act, speak, walk, and perform other functions which belong only to an organized body. ”

“ ‘It was a wonderful experience. She mistrusted his very slumbers—and she seemed to think I could tell her why! Thus a poor mortal seduced by the charm of an apparition might have tried to wring from another ghost the tremendous secret of the claim the other world holds over a disembodied soul astray amongst the passions of this earth. The very ground on which I stood seemed to melt under my feet. And it was so simple too; ”

“ In the above examples, the apparition, or wraith, has been in some way connected with the death of the person whose visionary likeness is seen; and, in most of these instances, the earnest longing to behold those beloved seems to have been the means of effecting the object. ”

“ In the ordinary case of an apparition, e.g., of a dying mother to her son, the condition of the appearance to [315] that particular percipient rather than to the man in the street should on this hypothesis be sought in the community of intellectual and emotional experiences which may be presumed to exist between near relatives who have passed a large part of their lives in the same environment. ”

“ The apparition of souls is not quite so disagreeable as that of heroes. In the appearance of the gods there is order and mildness, confusion and disorder in that of demons, and tumult in that of the archontes. ”

“ To these instances of the apparition of living persons to other living persons in their sleep, we may add an infinite number of other instances of apparitions of angels and holy personages, or even of dead persons, to the living when asleep, to give them instructions, warn them of dangers which menace them, inspire them with salutary counsel relative to their salvation, or to give them aid ”

“ The stranger’s first feeling, when suddenly confronted by that towering and awful apparition wrapped in its shroud of snow, is breath-taking astonishment. It is as if heaven’s gates had swung open and exposed the throne. ”

“ The distinct outline of the figure is most striking.
"The apparition always returns to the organ window. I have seen this several times since the first. Owing to the dull day and the darkness of the windows, the appearance on the first occasion was the more remarkable. Two or three other figures also appear, but I never thought them as distinct as the first, and I thought the second and third might be reflections of the first. The two or three often move quickly back and forwards with a dancing movement somewhat like the reflection of the sun on a wall, but taking the form of human figures. ”

“ What he then saw was like an apparition. She was seated in the middle of a bench all alone, or, at any rate, he could see no one, dazzled as he was by her eyes. ”

“ We find symbolical visions of departed persons, and of scenes among which they seem to dwell. We find externalised apparitions or phantasms of departed persons,—indicating that some point in the percipient's brain has been stimulated by his own or by some other spirit. ”

“ To those unfortunate persons, who feel a real dread of apparitions, I hope to offer considerations which will quiet their fears, and will even convert the horrors of solitude into a source of rational amusement. ”

“ The subjects I do intend to treat of are the various kinds of prophetic dreams, presentiments, second-sight, and apparitions; and, in short, all that class of phenomena which appears to throw some light on our physical nature, and on the probable state of the soul after death. In this discussion, I shall make free use of my German authorities, Doctors Kerner, Stilling, Werner, Eschenmayer, Ennemoser, Passavent, Schubert, Von Meyer, &c., &c. ”

“ But when I consider the delight with which stories of apparitions are received by persons of all ages, and of the most various kinds of knowledge and ability, I cannot help feeling some degree of complacency, in offering to the makers and readers of such stories, a view of the subject, which may extend their enjoyment far beyond its former limits. ”

“ Another great convenience will be found in my system; apparitions may be evoked, in open day,—at noon, if the case should be urgent, in the midst of a field, on the surface of water, or in the glare of a patent-lamp, quite as easily, as in the ‘darkness of chaos or old night.’ Nay, a person rightly prepared may see ghosts, while seated comfortably by his library-fire, in as much perfection, as amidst broken tombs, nodding ruins, and awe-inspiring ivy. ”

“ The common stories of the appearance of a ghost, or other variety of apparition, before the deaths of members of a particular family, are based partly on the belief in the recurrence of associated events. ”

“ We are everywhere entertained with pleasing shows and apparitions. We discover imaginary glories in the heavens and on the earth, and see some of this visionary beauty poured out over the whole creation. ”

“ From the principles which I have established, the reader will easily proceed with me, to account for the most imposing relations of apparitions.
I have shewn that a morbid disposition of the brain is capable of producing spectral impressions, without any external prototypes. The religion of the ancients, which peopled all parts of nature with deities of different ranks, exposed them, in a peculiar manner, to delusions of the imagination ”

“ In such ethereal apparitional dawns one walks with the Eternal, and all temporal things fade away. Those pale silver daybreaks have a rapture of their own, they suggest a fresh creation straight from the looms of God. ”

“ Now about a quarter of an hour before the spirit come, there will appear great variety of apparitions within the glass; as first a beaten road or tract, and travellers, men, and women marching silently along. ”

“ That we should reason upon those apparitions which appear in dreams otherwise than upon those which appear when we are awake; differently also upon apparitions wearing solid bodies, speaking, walking, eating and drinking, and those which seem like a shade, or a nebulous and aërial body. ”

“ In forming this conclusion, apparitions at death are of course selected, because, death being an unique event in man's earthly existence, the coincidences between death and apparitions afford a favourable case for statistical treatment. ”

“ It is thought by some of our modern investigators of psychic phenomena that apparitions result from the coming out of impressions left in the surrounding matter, or perhaps in the ether pervading it, especially in moments of supreme agitation or agony. ”

“ Every body talks of apparitions of angels and demons, and of souls separated from the body. The reality of these apparitions is considered as certain by many persons, while others deride them and treat them as altogether visionary. ”

“ For my part, I know not to this hour whether there are any such things as real apparitions, spectres, or walking of people after they are dead, or whether there is any thing in the stories they tell us of that kind, more than the product of vapours, sick minds, and wandering fancies. ”

“ In Phantasms of the Living, by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore, the explanation of apparitions which are coincident with a death as being generated by a telepathic influence exerted upon the percipient by the dying friend, suggests the most rational interpretation of certain parallel kinds of apparitions, of the dead or of fairies, who, as in these last examples, appear dressed in garments. ”

“ Moreover, I confess that I see insurmountable difficulties in explaining the manner or properties of apparitions, whether we admit with several ancients that angels, demons, and disembodied souls have a sort of subtile transparent body of the nature of air, whether we believe them purely spiritual and disengaged from all matter, visible, gross, or subtile. ”

“ But if we come to consider the Histories of late that are reported of apparitions, and such like things that must of necessity have something in them, that resembles a supernatural cause, we may in part receive more ample satisfaction, which will be manifest in these few following particulars. ”

“ Before the development of the scientific spirit belief in apparitions was universal. Scarce an instance can be given from antiquity of a tale of supernatural events carefully investigated, because to be told of the appearance of a ghost excited no more surprise than to be informed of a storm at sea, or of an extraordinary flash of lightning. ”

“ In a certain stage of putrefaction, the bodies of persons which have been immersed in water, rise to the surface, and in deep water, are supported in an erect posture, to the terror of uninstructed spectators. Menacing looks and gestures, and even words, are supplied by the affrighted imagination, with infinite facility, and referred to the horrible apparition. I insert a striking instance from Dr. ”

“ In the same paragraph, he touched on apparitions. "Men, who are distant from one another some hundreds or thousands of miles, may when they appear to the internal sense, be so near each other that some of them may touch, according to their situation." ”

“ Or, if we believe, as many wise and good men have done, that there are such phantoms and apparitions as those I have been speaking of, let us endeavour to establish to ourselves an interest in Him who holds the reins of the whole creation in his hand, and moderates them after such a manner, that it is impossible for one being to break loose upon another without his knowledge and permission. ”

“ Persons curious to learn every thing relative to apparitions, will be amply recompensed by consulting the two writers above mentioned. They give to the full as strange recitals as any which are to be found in this work. ”

“ Therefore, although instances of apparitions shortly after death are by no means uncommon, it is rare to find one in which the departed person has really done anything useful, or succeeded in impressing what he wished upon the friend or relation whom he visited. ”

“ Everyone was called on in turn to contribute his share of the story telling. Fairy tales and tales of adventure followed one another, but all these were nothing compared to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that succeeded. ”

“ He adds that these angelic Watchers manifested as apparitions to the women at the times of their union with their earthly husbands, "and the women, having in their minds desire towards their apparitions, gave birth to giants, for the Watchers appeared to them as reaching even unto Heaven." ”

“ The abstract possibility of apparitions must be admitted by every one who believes in a Deity, and His superintending omnipotence. But imagination is apt to intrude its explanations and inferences founded on inadequate evidence. ”

“ They are called apparitions, because they were never visible by day, only at ten at night; for the one is busied in describing great deeds, and the other in commenting on Newton. Like other apparitions, they are uneasy companions: they will neither play nor walk; they will not dissipate their mornings with the charming circle about them, nor allow the charming circle to break into their studies. ”