Here is an account of a visit paid at will, which is reported at first hand in the "Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society." The narrator, Mr. John Moule, tells how he determined to make an experiment of the kind now under discussion:—
"I chose for this purpose a young lady, a Miss Drasey, and stated that some day I intended to visit her, wherever the place might be, although the place might be unknown to me; and told her if anything particular should occur to note the time, and when she called at my house again to state if anything had occurred. One day, about two months after (I not having seen her in the interval), I was by myself in my chemical factory, Redman Row, Mile End, London, all alone, and I determined to try the experiment, the lady being in Dalston, about three miles off. I stood, raised my hands, and willed to act on the lady. I soon felt that I had expended energy. I immediately sat down in a chair and went to sleep. I then saw in a dream my friend coming down the kitchen stairs where I dreamt I was. She saw me, and exclaimed suddenly, 'Oh! Mr. Moule,' and fainted away. This I dreamt and then awoke. I thought very little about it, supposing I had had an ordinary dream; but about three weeks after she came to my house and related to my wife the singular occurrence of her seeing me sitting in the kitchen where she then was, and she fainted away and nearly dropped some dishes she had in her hands. All this I saw exactly in my dream, so that I described the kitchen furniture and where I sat as perfectly as if I had been there, though I had never been in the house. I gave many details, and she said, 'It is just as if you had been there.'" (Vol. III. pp. 420, 421.)
Mr. W. A. S., to quote another case, in April, 1871, at two o'clock in the afternoon, was sitting in a house in Pall Mall. He saw a lady glide in backwards at the door of the room, as if she had been slid in on a slide, each part of her dress keeping its proper place without disturbance. She glided in until the whole of her could be seen, except the tip of her nose, her lips, and the tip of her chin, which were hidden by the edge of the door. She was an old acquaintance of his, whom he had not seen for twenty or twenty-five years. He observed her closely until his brother entered the house, and coming into the room passed completely through the phantasm, which shortly afterwards faded away. Another person in the room could not see it. Some years afterwards he learned that she had died the same year, six months afterwards, from a painful cancer of the face. It was curious that the phantasm never showed him the front of its face, which was always hidden by the door. (Vol. II. p. 517.)
Sometimes, however, the Thought Body is both conscious and visible, although in most cases when visible it is not conscious, and retains no memory of what has passed. When it remembers it is usually not visible. In Mr. Dale Owen's remarkable volume, "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," there is a narrative, entitled "The Visionary Excursion," in which a lady, whom he calls Mrs. A., whose husband was a brigadier-general in India, describes an aerial flight so explicitly that I venture to reprint her story here, as illustrating the possibility of being visible and at the same time remembering where you had been:—
In June of the year 1857, a lady, whom I shall designate as Mrs. A., was residing with her husband, a colonel in the British army, and their infant child, on Woolwich Common, near London.
One night in the early part of that month, suddenly awaking to consciousness, she felt herself as if standing by the bedside and looking down upon her own body, which lay there by the side of her sleeping husband. Her first impression was that she had died suddenly, and the idea was confirmed by the pale and lifeless look of the body, the face void of expression, and the whole appearance showing no sign of vitality. She gazed at it with curiosity for some time, comparing its dead look with that of the fresh countenances of her husband and of her slumbering infant in the cradle hard by. For a moment she experienced a feeling of relief that she had escaped the pangs of death; but the next she reflected what a grief her death would be to the survivors, and then came the wish that she had broken the news to them gradually.
While engaged in these thoughts she felt herself carried to the wall of her room, with a feeling that it must arrest her further progress. But no, she seemed to pass through it into the open air. Outside the house was a tree; and this also she seemed to traverse as if it interposed no obstacle. All this occurred without any desire on her part.
She crossed Woolwich Common, visited the Arsenal, returned to the barracks, and then found herself in the bed-chamber of an intimate friend, Miss L. M., who lived at Greenwich. She began to talk; but she remembered no more until she waked by her husband's side. Her first words were, "So I am not dead after all." She told her husband of her excursion, and they agreed to say nothing about it until they heard from Miss L. M.
When they met that lady, two days after, she volunteered the statement that Mrs. A. had appeared to her about three o'clock in the morning of the night before last, robed in violet, and had a conversation with her ("Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," p. 256.)
0 comments:
Post a Comment