Mr. Mouat goes into his office at 10:45 o"clock on the morning of September 5th, sees his clerk and the porter in conversation, and the Rev.
Mr. H. standing at the corner of a table at the back of the clerk. He is about to speak to Mr. H. about his being there so early (more than an hour before his usual time), when the clerk commenced speaking to him about business and especially a telegram concerning which something was amiss.
This conversation lasted several minutes and was decidedly animated.
During this scene, Mr. R., from an office upstairs, comes in and listens to the excited conversation. He looks at Mr. H. in a comical way, motioning with his head toward the two disputants, as much as to say "they are having it hot;" but to Mr. R."s disgust Mr. H. does not respond to the joke. Mr. R. and the porter then leave the room. Mr. Mouat turns to Mr.
H., who was all the while standing at the corner of the table, notices that he looks downcast, and is without his neck-tie; he says to him, "Well, what is the matter with _you_, you look so sour?" Mr. H. makes no reply, but looks fixedly at Mr. Mouat. Having finished some papers he was reading Mr. Mouat noticed Mr. H. still standing at the table. The clerk at that moment handed Mr. Mouat a letter saying, "Here, sir, is a letter from Mr. H."
No sooner was the name p.r.o.nounced than Mr. H. disappeared in a second.
Mr. Mouat is dumfounded--so much so that the clerk notices it. It is then discovered that the clerk has not seen Mr. H. at all, and declares that he has not been in the office that morning. The letter from Mr. H. was written on the previous day and informs Mr. Mouat that he is ill, and will not be at the office the next day, and asks to have his letters sent to his house.
The next day, Friday, Mr. H. enters the office at his usual hour, twelve o"clock; and on being asked by Mr. Mouat where he was the previous day at 10:45 o"clock, he replied that at that time he had just finished breakfast--was at home with his wife, and did not leave the house all day.
The following Monday Mr. Mouat meets Mr. R. and asks him if he remembers being in his office the previous Thursday morning. R. replies that he does, perfectly. Does he remember who were present and what was going on?
"Yes," said Mr. R., "you were having an animated confab with your clerk about a telegram. Besides yourself and the clerk there were present the porter and Mr. H."
On being informed that Mr. H. was at home, fourteen miles" distant, at that time, Mr. R. became indignant that any one should insinuate that he did not know a man was present when he saw him. He insisted on calling the porter to corroborate him; but on being questioned, the porter, like the clerk, declared that he did not see anything of Mr. H. that morning.
Here, in broad daylight, of four persons present and engaged in business, two saw Mr. H. and addressed him either in words or by signs, while two others with equal opportunities did not see him at all.
The Rev. Mr. H. at home during the time had no particular experience of any kind. All that can be said is, that, it must have been about his usual time for starting for the office; he had sent a letter about his mail which he knew would then be received, and all the general routine and habit of his life would tend to direct his mind to that locality at that particular time. He was ill as he appeared to be to those who saw his _appearance_ at the office, and very likely he was negligently dressed.
Why should two of those present have seen his apparition, and two others have failed to see it? For the simple reason that, as in ordinary thought-transference, or in the "willing game" some are _good subjects_, or percipients, and others are not. For the same reason that of ten persons making trial of Planchette-writing, the board will move for only two or three out of the whole number--that is, in only a few would the hands act automatically in response to a subliminal self; and for the same reason it may also be true that amongst several persons, in only a few of those present, can the sense of sight or hearing be effected by a phantasm.
In many instances, children, and in some instances, very young children, have been the percipients--children too young to perceive any difference between the phantasm and a real person, and who have accordingly addressed it and spoken of it as they would of a real person. Even animals, especially horses and dogs, have given unmistakable evidence--by crouching, trembling, and fright--of perceiving the same phantasms that have been seen by persons who were present with them. The phantom being, so to speak, _in the air_, it is perceived by those whose organization is so adjusted as to make it _impressionable_, and to const.i.tute, to a greater or less degree, what is known as a _sensitive_.
Doubtless, on close examination, it would be found that persons capable of hypnotization, though they may never have been hypnotized, natural somnambulists, persons accustomed to vivid dreaming, reverie, abstraction, and kindred states, in other words, persons in whom the subliminal self sometimes gives indications of independent action, are most likely to have some _marked_ psychical experience. It may be only once in a lifetime, and this one instance _may_ be the perception of a phantasmal appearance.
In bringing to a close these examples of apparitions, I wish to introduce one which has specially impressed me. It was the experience of a child--it is reported by the percipient herself. The statement is singularly straightforward, and simple; something was done on account of the vision which impressed the circ.u.mstance upon others who did not see it, for prompt action founded upon what was seen, saved a life. I give it in the percipient"s own words, written to Mr. Gurney. It is from Mrs. Brettany, 2 Eckington Villas, Ashbourne Grove, Dulwich.
She writes:--
"November, 1884.
"When I was a child I had many remarkable experiences of a psychical nature, and which I remember to have looked upon as ordinary and natural at the time.
"On one occasion (I am unable to fix the date, but I must have been about ten years old) I was walking in a country lane at A., the place where my parents then resided. I was reading geometry as I walked along, a subject little likely to produce fancies, or morbid phenomena of any kind, when, in a moment, I saw a bedroom, known as the White Room in my home, and upon the floor lay my mother, to all appearances dead.
"The vision must have remained some minutes, during which time my real surroundings appeared to pale and die out; but as the vision faded actual surroundings came back, at first dimly, and then clearly. I could not doubt that what I had seen was real. So instead of going home, I went at once to the house of our medical man, and found him at home. He at once set out with me for my home, on the way putting questions I could not answer, as my mother was to all appearances well when I left home.
"I led the doctor straight to the White Room, where we found my mother actually lying as in my vision. This was true, even to minute details.
"She had been seized suddenly by an attack of the heart, and would soon have breathed her last but for the doctor"s timely arrival. I shall get my father and mother to read this and sign it."
"JEANIE GWYNNE-BRETTANY."
Mrs. Brettany"s parents write:--
"We certify that the above is correct."
"S. G. GWYNNE.
"J. W. GWYNNE."
In answer to inquiries, Mrs. Brettany states further:
"The White Room in which I saw my mother, and afterwards actually found her, was out of use. It was unlikely she should be there.
"She was found lying in the att.i.tude in which I had seen her. I found a handkerchief with a lace border beside her on the floor. This I had distinctly noticed in my vision. There were other particulars of coincidence which I cannot put here."
Mrs. Brettany"s father writes further:--
"I distinctly remember being surprised by seeing my daughter in company with the family doctor, outside the door of my residence; and I asked, "Who is ill?" She replied, "Mamma." She led the way at once to the "White Room," where we found my wife lying in a swoon on the floor. It was when I asked when she had been taken ill that I found it must have been after my daughter had left the house. None of the servants in the house knew anything of the sudden illness, which our doctor a.s.sured me would have been fatal had he not arrived when he did.
"My wife was quite well when I left her in the morning."
"S. G. GWYNNE."
Taking, as we must, the main incidents of this narrative as true, we have either a simple case of clairvoyance on the part of Mrs. Brettany as a child, or else, on the other hand, the subliminal self of the unconscious mother hastened to impress the situation upon the sensitive child, and with the definite good result which is recorded.
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSIONS.
In gathering up the results of these investigations, it must be stated that in showing their relation to science there is no thought of any detraction from the n.o.bility and greatness of scientific labor and achievement in the material world--that is grand almost beyond expression.
The att.i.tude of science is conservative, and it is right; but sooner or later it must awake to the fact that here is a new field for investigation which comes strictly within the limits of its aims, and even of its methods. Many individual members of the great body of scientific workers see and know this; gradually the majority will see it.
On the other hand, it must be stated that there is no intention of covering the whole ground of alleged occult psychic phenomena, but only a portion, even of such as relate to our present life. The subject of the return of spirits is untouched; it is only shown that the domain of alleged spiritualistic manifestations is deeply trenched upon by the action of the subliminal self of living people; what lies beyond that is neither affirmed nor denied; it rests upon ground yet to be cleared up and considered; and any facts open to satisfactory investigation are always welcomed by any of the many persons and societies interested in discovering what is true relating to it.
Confining ourselves within the limits a.s.signed, if the series of alleged facts which has been presented in the preceding chapters be true, then we are in the presence of a momentous reality which, for importance and value, has not been exceeded, if, indeed, it has been approached by any of the discoveries of modern times.
But, it may be said, your alleged facts are not new; they are coeval with history, with mythology, with folk-lore, with religion. Granted that the facts are old, that similar ones have been known from very early times, how have these facts been treated by the leaders of thought in the nineteenth century?
That the earth goes round the sun is an old fact, yet it was not made patent and credible, even to the cultivated, much less to the average mind, till recent times. Evolution has been going on since millions of years before the human race came into existence--it is a very ancient fact, yet it is only within the memory of men still living that it has been found out and accepted. So telepathy has existed ever since the race was young, yet few even now know the facts, observations, and experiments upon which its existence is predicated or comprehend either its theories or its importance. The subliminal self has been active in every age of which we have any record. Yet it has never been recognized as forming a part of each and every individual"s mental outfit, but its wonderful action has either been discredited altogether, or else has been credited to foreign or supernatural agencies.
But telepathy can no longer be cla.s.sed with fads and fancies; if not already an accepted fact, it has certainly attained to the dignity of a theory supported by both facts and experiments; a theory which has attracted to its study a large company of competent men in every civilized country.
A theory, no matter in what department of investigation it may be found, whether relating to matter or mind, is strong in proportion to the number of facts which it will bring into line, harmonize and reduce to system. It is that which makes the Nebular Theory of the formation of the planetary system so wonderfully strong; it harmonizes and reduces to system so many known but otherwise unrelated and unsystematized facts; and it is easier to find excuses or form minor theories to account for isolated and apparently erratic facts, like the retrograde motions of the satellites of Ura.n.u.s and Neptune, than to give up a theory, at once so grand in itself and at the same time harmonizing so many important astronomical phenomena.
The same is true of the undulatory theory of light, and again of the theory of evolution, which forty years ago was looked upon as a flimsy hypothesis, but which is now universally accepted as an established truth.
Some of the facts are still uncla.s.sified and unexplained, yet it so harmonizes in general the facts of the visible world, that instead of a ma.s.s of disjointed and heterogeneous objects and phenomena, such as men beheld in nature only a hundred years ago, the arbitrary work of a blind chance or a capricious Creator, we now behold a beautiful and orderly sequence, progression, and unfolding of the natural world according to laws which command our admiration and stimulate our reverence.
Apart from recent studies, exactly the same condition of chaos and confusion exists regarding psychical phenomena as existed concerning the facts in the physical world only a hundred years ago. Nor is it likening great things to small when we compare the nebular hypothesis, or the theory of evolution, conceptions which have educated an age and vastly enlarged the boundary of human thought, to the theory of telepathy and the fact and power of the subliminal self. For if it was important that men should know the laws governing inanimate matter, to comprehend the orbits and motions of the planets; if it developed the understanding to contemplate the grandeur of their movements, the vast s.p.a.ces which they traverse, and the wonderful speed with which they accomplish their various journeys--if such knowledge has enlarged the capacity of men"s minds, given them truer notions of the magnitude of the universe, and grander conceptions of nature and the infinite power and intelligence which pervades and is exhibited in it, is it not equally important and equally improving and practical to study the subtler forces which pervade living organisms, the still finer laws and adjustments which govern the action of mind?
It has been contended by a large and intelligent cla.s.s of writers, and those who most pride themselves on scientific methods and the infallibility of scientific inductions, that mind is only the product of organization and ceases to have any activity or even existence when the organs through which it usually manifests itself have perished. The general consensus of mankind is a sharp protest against this conclusion--but the experimental proofs have, to many, seemed in favor of this scientific denial;--the healthy brain in general exhibits a healthy mental activity, the diseased or imperfect brain shows impaired mental action, and the disorganized brain simply exhibits no mental activity nor any evidence whatever of the existence of mind. Nevertheless, it is a lame argument; it is simply an attempt to prove a negative.
The healthy rose emits an agreeable odor which our senses appreciate. You may destroy the rose--it does not prove that the fragrance which it emitted does not still exist even though our senses fail to appreciate it.
But experiment and scientific methods have also somewhat to say upon this subject. And first, in August, 1874, twenty-two years ago, at the moment when the materialistic school was at the height of its influence, both the scientific and religious world were brought to a momentary standstill--like a ship under full headway suddenly struck by a tidal wave--when one of the most eminent scientific men of his time, or of any time, standing in his place as president of the foremost scientific a.s.sociation in the world, spoke as follows: "Abandoning all disguise, the confession which I feel bound to make before you is that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of experimental evidence and discover in matter, which we, in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form of life."[2]