Real Ghost Stories
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William T. Stead >> Real Ghost Stories
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My hostess was the daughter of a well-known London solicitor, who, after
spending her early youth in dancing and riding and other diversions of
young ladies in society who have the advantage of a house in Park Lane,
suddenly became possessed by a strange, almost savage, fascination for
the occult lore of the ancient East. Abandoning the frivolities of
Mayfair, she went to Girton, where she plunged into the study of
Sanscrit. After leaving Girton, she applied herself to the study of the
occult side of Theosophy. Then she married a black magician in the
platonic fashion common to Occultists, early Christians, and Russian
Nihilists, and since then she has prosecuted her studies into the
invisible world with ever-increasing interest.
_The Thought Body._
"I see you are incredulous," she replied; "but, if you like, I will some
time afford you an opportunity of proving that I am simply speaking the
truth. Tell me, will you speak to me if I appear to you in my thought
body?" "Certainly," I replied, "unless I am struck dumb. Nothing would
please me better. But, of course, I have never seen a ghost, and no one
can say how any utterly unaccustomed experience may affect him."
"Unfortunately," she replied, "that is too often the case. All those to
whom I have hitherto appeared have been so scared they could not speak."
"But, my dear friend, do you actually mean to say that you have the
faculty of----" "Going about in my Thought Body? Most certainly. It is
not a very uncommon faculty, but it is one which needs cultivation and
development." "But what is a Thought Body?" My hostess smiled: "It is
difficult to explain truths on the plane of thought to those who are
immersed body and soul in matter. I can only tell you that every person
has, in addition to this natural body of flesh, bones, and blood, a
Thought Body, the exact counterpart in every respect of this material
frame. It is contained within the material body, as air is contained in
the lungs and in the blood. It is of finer matter than the gross fabric
of our outward body. It is capable of motion with the rapidity of
thought. The laws of space and time do not exist for the mind, and the
Thought Envelope of which we are speaking moves with the swiftness of
the mind."
"Then when your thought body appears?"
"My mind goes with it. I see, I hear, and my consciousness is with my
Thought Envelope. But I want to have a proper interview while on my
thought journeys. That is why I ask you if you would try to speak to me
if I appear."
"But," I objected, "do you really mean that you hope to appear before
me, in my office, as immaterial as gas, as visible as light, and yet to
speak, to touch?"
"That is just what I mean," she replied, laughing, "that and nothing
less. I was in your office the other morning at six o'clock, but no one
was there. I have not got this curious power as yet under complete
control. But when once we are able to direct it at will, imagine what
possibilities it unfolds!"
"But," said I, "if you can be seen and touched, you ought to be
photographed!"
"I wish to be photographed, but no one can say as yet whether such
thought bodies can be photographed. When next I make the experiment I
want you to try. It would be very useful."
Useful indeed! It does not require very vivid imagination to see that if
you can come and go to the uttermost parts of the world in your thought
shape, such Thought Bodies will be indispensable henceforth on every
enterprising newspaper. It would be a great saving on telegraphy. When
my ideal paper comes along, I mentally vowed I would have my hostess as
first member of my staff. But of course it had got to be proved, and
that not only once but a dozen times, before any reliance could be
placed on it.
"I often come down here," said my hostess cheerfully, "after breakfast.
I just lie down in my bedroom in town, and in a moment I find myself
here at Hindhead. Sometimes I am seen, sometimes I am not. But I am
here; seen or unseen, I see. It is a curious gift, and one which I am
studying hard to develop and to control."
"And what about clothes?" I asked. "Oh," replied my hostess airily, "I
go in whatever clothes I like. There are astral counterparts to all our
garments. It by no means follows that I appear in the same dress as that
which is worn by my material body. I remember, when I appeared to your
friend, I wore the astral counterpart of a white silk shawl, which was
at the time folded away in the wardrobe."
At this point, however, in order to anticipate the inevitable
observation that my hostess was insane, I think I had better introduce
the declarations of my two friends, who are quite clear and explicit as
to their recollection of what they saw.
My witnesses are mother and daughter. The daughter I have seen and
interviewed; the mother I could not see, but took a statement down from
her husband, who subsequently submitted it in proof to her for
correction. I print the daughter's statement first.
"About eighteen months ago (in May, 1890) I was staying at the house of
my friend in M---- Mansions. Mrs. M. had gone to her country house at
Hindhead for a fortnight and was not expected back for a week. I was
sitting in the kitchen reading Edna Lyall's 'Donovan.' About half-past
nine o'clock I distinctly heard Mrs. M. walk up and down the passage
which ran from the front door past the open door of the room in which I
was sitting. I was not thinking of Mrs. M. and did not at the time
realize that she was not in the flat, when suddenly I heard her voice
and saw her standing at the open door. I saw her quite distinctly, and
saw that she was dressed in the dress in which I had usually seen her in
an evening, without bonnet or hat, her hair being plaited low down close
to the back of her head. The dress, I said, was the same, but there were
two differences which I noticed at once. In her usual dress, the silk
front was grey; this time the grey colour had given place to a curious
amber, and over her shoulders she wore a shawl of white Indian silk. I
noticed it particularly, because the roses embroidered on it at its ends
did not correspond with each other. All this I saw as I looked up and
heard her say, 'T----, give me that book.' I answered, half
mechanically, 'Yes, Mrs. M.,' but felt somewhat startled. I had hardly
spoken when Mrs. M. turned, opened the door leading into the main
building, and went out. I instantly got up and followed her to the door.
It was closed. I opened it and looked out, but could see nobody. It was
not until then that I fully realised that there was something uncanny in
what I had seen. I was very frightened, and after having satisfied
myself that Mrs. M. was not in the flat, I fastened the door, put out
the lights, and went to bed, burying my head under the bedclothes.
"The post next day brought a letter from Mrs. M. saying that she was
coming by eleven o'clock. I was too frightened to stay in the house, and
I went to my father and told him what I had seen. He told me to go back
and hear what Mrs. M. had to say about the matter. When Mrs. M. arrived
I told her what I had seen on the preceding evening. She laughed, and
said, 'Oh! I was here then, was I? I did not expect to come here.' With
that exception I have seen no apparition whatever, or had any
hallucination of any kind, neither have I seen the apparition of Mrs. M.
again."
After hearing this statement I asked Mrs. M. what she meant by the
remark she had made on hearing Miss C.'s explanation of what she had
witnessed. My hostess replied, "That night when I passed into the trance
state, and lay down on the couch in the sitting-room at Hindhead, I did
so with the desire of visiting my husband, who was in his retreat at
Wimbledon. That, I should say, was between nine and half-past. After I
came out of the trance I was conscious that I had been somewhere, but I
did not know where. I started from Hindhead for Wimbledon, but landed at
M---- Mansions, where, no doubt, I was more at home." "Then you had no
memory of where you had been?" "Not the least." "And what about the
shawl?" "The shawl was one that Miss C. had never seen. I had not worn
it for two years, and the fact that she saw it and described it, is
conclusive evidence against the subjective character of the vision. The
originals of all the phantom clothes were at M---- Mansions at the time
Miss C. saw me wearing them. I was not wearing the shawl. At the time
when she saw it on my Thought Body it was folded up and put away in a
wardrobe in an adjoining room. She had never seen it." I asked Miss C.
what was the appearance of Mrs. M. She replied, "She just looked as she
does always, only much more beautiful." "How do you account," said I to
my hostess, "for the change in colour of the silk front from grey to
amber?" She replied, "It was a freak."
I then asked Mr. C., the father of the last witness, what had occurred
in his wife's experience. Here is the statement which his wife made to
him, and which he says is absolutely reliable. "I was staying at
Hindhead, in the lodge connected with the house in which you are
staying. I was in some trouble, and Mrs. M. had been somewhat anxious
about me. I had gone to sleep, but was suddenly aroused by the
consciousness that some one was bending over me. When I opened my eyes I
saw in shimmering outline a figure which I recognised at once as that of
Mrs. M. She was bending over me, and her great lustrous eyes seemed to
pierce my very soul. For a time I lay still, as if paralysed, being
unable either to speak or to move, but at last gaining courage with time
I ventured to strike a match. As soon as I did so the figure of Mrs. M.
disappeared. Feeling reassured and persuaded that I had been deluded by
my senses, I at last put out the light and composed myself to sleep. To
my horror, no sooner was the room dark than I saw the spectral,
shimmering form of Mrs. M. moving about the room, and always turning
towards me those wonderful, piercing eyes. I again struck a match, and
again the apparition vanished from the room.
"By this time I was in a mortal terror, and it was some time before I
ventured to put out the light again, when a third time I saw the
familiar presence which had evidently never left the room, but simply
been invisible in the light. In the dark it shone by its own radiance. I
was taken seriously ill with a violent palpitation of the heart, and
kept my light burning. I felt so utterly upset that I could not remain
any longer in the place and insisted next morning on going home. I did
not touch the phantom, I simply saw it--saw it three times, and its
haunting persistency rendered it quite impossible for me to mistake it
for any mere nightmare."
Neither Mrs. nor Miss C. have had any other hallucinations, and Mrs. C.
is strongly sceptical. She does not deny the accuracy of the above
statement, but scouts the theory of a Thought Body, or of any
supernatural or occult explanation. On hearing Mrs. C.'s evidence I
asked my hostess whether she was conscious of haunting her guest in this
way. "I knew nothing about it," she replied; "all that I know was that I
had been much troubled about her and was anxious to help her. I went
into a very heavy, deep sleep; but until next morning, when I heard of
it from Mrs. C. I had no idea that my double had left my room." I said,
"This power is rather gruesome, for you might take to haunting me." "I
do not think so, unless there was something to be gained which could not
be otherwise secured, some benefit to be conferred upon you." "That is
to say, if I were in trouble or dangerously ill, and you were anxious
about me, your double might come and attend my sick-bed." "That is quite
possible," she said imperturbably. "Well," said I, "when are you coming
to be photographed?" "Not for many months yet," she replied, with a
laugh. "For the Thought Body to leave its corporeal tenement it needs a
considerable concentration of thought, and an absence of all disturbing
conditions or absorbing preoccupations at the time. I see no reason why
I should not be photographed when the circumstances are propitious. I
shall be very glad to furnish you with that evidence of the reality of
the Thought Body, but such things cannot be fixed up to order."
This, indeed, was a ghost to some purpose--a ghost free from all the
weird associations of death and the grave--a healthy, utilisable ghost,
and a ghost, above all, which wanted to be photographed. It seemed too
good to be true. Yet how strange it was! Here we have just been
discussing whether or not we have each of us two souls, and, behold! my
good hostess tells me quite calmly that it is beyond all doubt that we
have two bodies.
_Three Other Aerial Wanderers._
A short time after hearing from my hostess this incredible account of
her aerial journeyings, I received first hand from three other ladies
statements that they had also enjoyed this faculty of bodily
duplication. All four ladies are between twenty and forty years of age.
Three of them are married. The first says she has almost complete
control over her movements, but for the most part her phantasmal
envelope is invisible to those whom she visits.
This, it may be said, is mere conscious clairvoyance, in which the
faculty of sight was accompanied by the consciousness of bodily
presence, although it is invisible to other eyes. It is, besides, purely
subjective and therefore beside the mark. Still, it is interesting as
embodying the impressions of a mind, presumably sane, as to the
experiences through which it has consciously passed. On the same ground
I may refer to the experience of Miss X., the second lady referred to,
who, when lying, as it was believed, at the point of death, declares
that she was quite conscious of coming out of her body and looking at it
as it lay in the bed. In all the cases I have yet mentioned the
departure of the phantasmal body is accompanied by a state of trance on
the part of the material body. There is not dual consciousness, but only
a dual body, the consciousness being confined to the immaterial body.
It is otherwise with the experience of the fourth wanderer in my text.
Mrs. Wedgwood, the daughter-in-law of Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, the
well-known philologist, who was Charles Darwin's cousin, declares that
she had once a very extraordinary experience. She was lying on a couch
in an upper room one wintry morning at Shorncliffe, when she felt her
Thought Body leave her and, passing through the window, alight on the
snowy ground. She was distinctly conscious both in her material body and
in its immaterial counterpart. She lay on the couch watching the
movements of the second self, which at the same moment felt the snow
cold under its feet. The second self met a labourer and spoke to him. He
replied as if somewhat scared. The second self walked down the road and
entered an officer's hut, which was standing empty. She noted the number
of guns. There were a score or more of all kinds in all manner of
places; remarked upon the quaint looking-glass; took a mental inventory
of the furniture; and then, coming out as she went in, she regained her
material body, which all the while lay perfectly conscious on the couch.
Then, when the two selves were reunited, she went down to breakfast, and
described where she had been. "Bless me," said an officer, who was one
of the party, "if you have not been in Major ----'s hut. You have
described it exactly, especially the guns, which he has a perfect mania
for collecting."
Here the immaterial body was not only visible but audible, and that not
merely to the casual passer-by, but also to the material body which had
for the moment parted with one of its vital constituents without losing
consciousness.
It must, of course, be admitted that, with the exception of the
statement by my two friends as to the apparition of Mrs. M.'s immaterial
body, none of the other statements can pretend to the slightest
evidential value. They may be worth as much as the confessions of the
witches who swore they were dancing with Satan while their husbands held
their material bodies clasped in their arms; but any explanation of
subjective hallucination or of downright lying would be preferred by the
majority of people to the acceptance of the simple accuracy of these
statements. The phenomenon of the aerial flight is, however, not
unfamiliar to those who are interested in this subject.
_Mrs. Besant's Theory._
I asked Mrs. Besant whether she thought my hostess was romancing, and
whether my friend had not been the victim of some illusion. "Oh, no,"
said Mrs. Besant cheerfully. "There is nothing improbable about it. Very
possibly she has this faculty. It is not so uncommon as you think. But
its exercise is rather dangerous, and I hope she is well instructed."
"How?" I asked. "Oh," Mrs. Besant replied, "it is all right if she knows
what she is about, but it is just as dangerous to go waltzing about on
the astral plane as it is for a girl to go skylarking down a dark slum
when roughs are about. Elementals, with the desire to live, greedily
appropriating the vitality and the passions of men, are not the
pleasantest companions. Nor can other astrals of the dead, who have met
with sudden or violent ends, and whose passions are unslaked, be
regarded as desirable acquaintances. If she knows what she is about,
well and good. But otherwise she is like a child playing with dynamite."
"But what is an astral body?"
Mrs. Besant replied, "There are several astrals, each with its own
characteristics. The lowest astral body taken in itself is without
conscience, will, or intelligence. It exists as a mere shadowy phantasm
only as long as the material body lasts." "Then the mummies in the
Museum?" "No doubt a clairvoyant could see their astrals keeping their
silent watch by the dead. As the body decays so the astral fades away."
"But that implies the possibility of a decaying ghost?" "Certainly. An
old friend of mine, a lady who bears a well-known name, was once haunted
for months by an astral. She was a strong-minded girl, and she didn't
worry. But it was rather ghastly when the astral began to decay. As the
corpse decomposed the astral shrank, until at last, to her great relief,
it entirely disappeared."
Mrs. Besant mentioned the name of the lady, who is well known to many of
my readers, and one of the last to be suspected of such haunting.
Chapter II.
The Evidence of the Psychical Research Society.
In that great text-book on the subject, "The Phantasms of the Living,"
by Messrs. Gurney, Myers, and Podmore, the phenomenon of the Thought
Body is shown to be comparatively frequent, and the Psychical Research
Society have about a hundred recorded instances. I will only quote here
two or three of the more remarkable cases mentioned in these imposing
volumes.
The best case of the projection of the Thought Body at will is that
described, under the initials of "S. H. B.," in the first volume of the
"Phantasms," pp. 104-109. Mr. B. is a member of the Stock Exchange, who
is well known to many intimate friends of mine as a man of high
character. The narrative, which is verified by the Psychical Research
Society, places beyond doubt the existence of powers in certain
individuals which open up an almost illimitable field of mystery and
speculation. Mr. B.'s story, in brief, is this:--
"One Sunday night in November, 1881, I was in Kildare Gardens, when I
willed very strongly that I would visit in spirit two lady friends, the
Misses V., who were living three miles off in Hogarth Road. I willed
that I should do this at one o'clock in the morning, and having willed
it I went to sleep. Next Thursday, when I first met my friends, the
elder lady told me she woke up and saw my apparition advancing to her
bedside. She screamed and woke her sister, who also saw me." (A signed
statement by both sisters accompanies this narrative. They fix the time
at one o'clock, and say that Mr. B. wore evening dress.)
"On December 1st, 1882, I was at Southall. At half-past nine I sat down
to endeavour to fix my mind so strongly upon the interior of a house at
Kew, where Miss V. and her sister lived, that I seemed to be actually in
the house. I was conscious, but I was in a kind of mesmeric sleep. When
I went to bed that night I willed to be in the front bedroom of that
house at Kew at twelve, and make my presence felt by the inmates. Next
day I went to Kew. Miss V.'s married sister told me, without any
prompting from me, that she had seen me in the passage going from one
room to another at half-past nine o'clock, and that at twelve, when she
was wide awake, she saw me come into the front bedroom where she slept
and take her hair, which is very long, into my hand. She said I then
took her hand and gazed into the palm intently. She said, 'You need not
look at the lines, for I never had any trouble.' She then woke her
sister. When Mrs. L. told me this I took out the entry I had made the
previous night and read it to her. Mrs. L. is quite sure she was not
dreaming. She had only seen me once before, two years previously, at a
fancy ball.
"On March 22nd, 1884, I wrote to Mr. Gurney, of the Psychical Research
Society, telling him I was going to make my presence felt by Miss V., at
44, Norland Square, at mid-night. Ten days afterwards I saw Miss V.,
when she voluntarily told me that on Saturday at midnight she distinctly
saw me, when she was quite wide awake. I came towards her and stroked
her hair. She adds in her written statement, 'The appearance in my room
was most vivid and quite unmistakable.' I was then at Ealing."
Here there is the thrice-repeated projection at will of the Thought Body
through space so as to make it both visible to, and tangible by,
friends. But the Conscious Personality which willed the visit has not
yet unlocked the memory of his unconscious partner, and Mr. B., although
able to go and see and touch, could bring back no memory of his aerial
flight. All that he knew was that he willed and then he slept. The fact
that he appeared is attested not by his consciousness, but by the
evidence of those who saw him.
_A Visitor from Burmah._
Here is a report of the apparition of a Thought Body, the material
original of which was at the time in Burmah. The case is important,
because the Thought Body was not recognised at the time, showing that it
could not have been a subjective revival of the memory of a face. It is
sent me by a gentleman in South Kensington, who wishes to be mentioned
only by his initials, R.S.S.
"Towards the close of 1888 my son, who had obtained an appointment in
the Indian Civil Service, left England for Burmah.
"A few days after his arrival in Rangoon he was sent up the country to
join the District Commissioner of a district still at that period much
harassed by Dacoits.
"After this two mails passed by without news of him, and as, up to this
period, his letters had reached us with unfailing regularity, we had a
natural feeling of anxiety for his safety. As the day for the arrival of
the third mail drew near I became quite unreasonably apprehensive of bad
news, and in this state of mind I retired one evening to bed, and lay
awake till long past the middle of the night, when suddenly, close to my
bedside, appeared very distinctly the figure of a young man. The face
had a worn and rather sad expression; but in the few seconds during
which it was visible the impression was borne in upon me that the vision
was intended to be reassuring.
"I cannot explain why I did not at once associate this form with my son,
but it was so unlike the hale, fresh-looking youth we had parted from
only four or five months previously that I supposed it must be his
chief, whom I knew to be his senior by some five years only.
"I retailed this incident to my son by the next mail, and was perplexed
when I got his reply to hear that his chief was a man with a beard and
moustache, whereas the apparition was devoid of either. A little later
came a portrait of himself recently taken. It was the subject of my
vision, of which the traits had remained, and still remain, in every
detail, perfectly distinct in my recollection."
_Thought Visits Seen and Remembered._
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.)
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