Apparitions and thought-transference: an examination of the evidence for telepathyPodmore, Frank
Philosophy
Apparitions and thought-transference: an examination of the evidence for telepathy
Podmore, Frank
Apparitions; Telepathy
Mr. M. has searched in vain for the original letter of Dr. N. referring
to the incident. Two letters, however, referring to one of the later
experiences mentioned by him have been found, and copies of them, made
by Dr. Hodgson on June 6th, 1887, are given below.
(1.)
DR. N. to MR. M.
"DOCTOR'S OFFICE, _July_ 24_th_,
(Year not given).
"If I don't hear from you to-morrow, I shall write you a letter! I
am anxious about you.
"N."
(2.)
MR. M. to DR. N.
BOSTON, _July_ 26, 1883.
"What clairvoyant vision again told you of me Monday and Tuesday
and Wednesday? Was it as vivid and real as the other time? It had,
at least, a very closely related cause.
"It is past 1 A.M., but I will not go to bed till I have sent you
a word. A letter will follow very soon. For two days I have been
thinking of the way you wrote to me that time, and I should have
written to you within twenty-four hours if I had not received the
note from you. Please write to me as you proposed. This is only to
tell you that I am alive and not ill, but tired, tired! Tell me of
yourself. I have had a hard three months in the West, eighteen to
twenty hours a day, scarce a respite--I am not ill; I am sure I am
not, but I am _worked out_. I couldn't get to ---- or write.
"I used the telegraph even with my sisters.
"I hope for a letter, and will surely send you one.
"Yours,
"M."
These letters, which apparently relate to the second of the three
experiences mentioned by M., afford incidentally strong corroboration
of the accuracy of the statements made as to the first and most
remarkable experience.
Several instances have been already published (_Phantasms of the
Living_, vol. ii. pp. 365-370) of what appears to be telepathic
affection, in which there was no apparent link to connect the agent and
percipient. Thus intimation of the deaths of three dukes--Cambridge,
Portland, and Wellington--was conveyed to complete strangers. A similar
impression is recorded (_Journal S.P.R._, Nov. 1892) as affecting a
stranger at the death of Lord Tennyson, and a somewhat similar instance
is recorded (_Journal_, May 1892) in connection with the death of
General the Hon. Sir Leicester Smyth. The Head-master of a Grammar
School in Leicester saw in a vision the irruption of water into the
Thames Tunnel (_Phantasms, loc. cit._). In all these cases, if we
accept the incidents as telepathic, they recall, as Mr. Gurney remarks,
"the Greek notion of φήμη, the Rumour which spreads from some unknown
source, and far outstrips all known means of transport." The evidence
so far adduced, however, is by no means sufficient to establish any
such conclusion. But the following narrative, which comes from a lady
well known to me, is worth considering in this connection.
No. 50.--From MISS Y.
"PERTH, 19_th January_ 1890.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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