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
Some friends of mine have a big tabby that has frequently been seen in
two places at the same time; for example, it has been observed by
several people to be sitting on a chair in the dining-room, and, at the
same moment, it has been seen by two or more other persons extended at
full length before the kitchen fire--the latter figure proving to be its
immaterial, or what some designate its astral body, which vanishes the
instant an attempt is made to touch it. The only explanation of this
phenomenon seems to me to lie in projection--the cat possessing the
faculty of separating--in this instance, unconsciously--its spiritual
from its physical body--the former travelling anywhere, regardless of
space, time and material obstacles. I have often had experiences similar
to this with a friend's dog. I have been seated in a room, either
reading or writing, and on looking up have distinctly seen the dog lying
on the carpet in front of me. A few minutes later a scraping at the door
or window--both of which have been shut all the while--and on my rising
to see what was there, I have discovered the dog outside! Had I not been
so positive I had seen the dog on the ground in front of me, I might
have thought it was an hallucination; but hallucinations are never so
vivid nor so lasting--moreover, other people have had similar
experiences with the same dog. And why not? Dogs, on the whole, are
every whit as reasoning and reflective as the bulk of human beings! And
how much nobler! Compare, for a moment, the dogs you know--no matter
whether mastiffs, retrievers, dachshunds, poodles, or even Pekinese,
with your acquaintances--with the people you see everywhere around
you--false, greedy, spiteful, scandal-loving women, money-grubbing
attorneys, lying, swindling tradesmen, vulgar parvenus, finicky curates,
brutal roughs, spoilt, cruel children, hypocrites of both sexes--compare
them carefully--and the comparison is entirely in favour of the dog!
And if the creating Power (or Powers) has favoured these wholly selfish
and degenerate human beings with spirits, and has conferred on certain
of them the faculty of projecting those spirits, can one imagine, for
one moment, that similar gifts have been denied to dogs--their superiors
in every respect? Pshaw! Out upon it! To think so would mean to think
the unthinkable, to attribute to God qualities of partiality, injustice
and whimsicality, which would render Him little, if anything, better
than a James the Second of England, or a Louis the Fifteenth of France.
Besides, from my own experience, and the experiences of those with whom
I have been brought in contact, I can safely affirm that there are
phantasms (and therefore spirits) of both living and dead dogs in just
the same proportion as there are phantasms (and therefore spirits) of
both living and dead human beings.
_Psychic Properties of Dogs_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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