Animal Ghosts; Or, Animal Hauntings and the HereafterO'Donnell, Elliott
Religion
Animal Ghosts; Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter
O'Donnell, Elliott
Animal ghosts; Extrasensory perception in animals
"I can remember hearing his third wife describe his dread of it, and my
mother has told me how both the sister and the second wife used to say
the same thing, though I was too young then for them to tell me about
it. Lautenschlager used also to complain to the country people who came
to dine at his eating-house. He considered himself an ill-used man, and
felt that the supernatural powers were treating him very hardly, and
subjecting him to a real persecution. I have only the conversation of
his wife and the gossip of the village to vouch for his sincerity, and
the genuineness of the apparition is supported only by Lautenschlager's
word, but his evident anger and agitation were accepted as genuine, and
no one dreamed of doubting his word. He was not at all a dreamy or
imaginative man, and did not drink. His passion was merely momentary. He
was not only a draper and caterer but a usurer, and realized something
of a fortune by lending money on good security to peasants and farmers
who, it was said, did not consider how they bound themselves when they
signed the papers he put before them.
"Lautenschlager continued to be haunted by the cat-ghost at irregular
intervals for more than twenty years, and it made a marked change in his
character. He became serious, and during the latter part of his life
would only talk about religion and read sacred literature. He died about
ten years ago."
"FELINE."
Letter 7
_A Spectral Fox-terrier_
Two or three years ago I visited a medium (Mrs. Davies of 44 Laburnum
Grove, Portsmouth). I had been seated only a few minutes when a little
pug-dog of hers looked up in the direction of my knees and down towards
my feet, growling and howling in a most strange manner.
"What on earth is he looking at?" I exclaimed.
"Oh," said the medium, "there is a little fox-terrier lying across your
feet; one half of his face is quite dark and the other half white, but
he has such a peculiar black patch over the eye that one would almost
think it was a black bruise." Now, sir, I had such a little dog in
India, but this lady did not know of him, and would never have known had
he not, as I afterwards found, died out there. This is not only a case
of the appearance of an animal after death, but also a case in which it
was seen by another animal, as also by the medium. I am also told that
the pug-dog who had this vision of my dog was once seen to pounce upon
what seemed to the medium to be several cats, near the copper in the
scullery of the same house. The medium asked a neighbour if the previous
occupants had had any cats. "Oh, yes," replied the neighbour, "and badly
the poor things were served, for they were cruelly thrown into the
copper, which was full of boiling water."
"SIMLA" (M. Conder).
Letter 8
_Killed by a Street Car, but walks in at the Front Door_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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