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
"On the following Monday morning, the 26th March, I received a
letter from my brother, which bore the date of the 21st March, and
which had been posted at Naples (where the Orient steamers touch),
informing me that he was on his way home, and that he hoped to
reach London on or about the 30th March, and adding that he was
suffering from a very severe attack of gout in the left arm.
"The next day I related to some one this curious incident, and I
commented on the extraordinary coincidence of facts with the dream
except in one detail, and that was, that the arm which I had seen
in my dream did not look as if it were merely affected with gout:
the appearance it had presented to me was more like extremely bad
eczema.
"My brother duly reached England on the 29th, having disembarked
at Plymouth owing to the painful condition of his arm. It turned
out that the doctor on board ship had mistaken the case; it was
not gout, but a case of blood poisoning, resulting in a very bad
carbuncle or abscess over the wrist joint.
"Since my brother's return, I have endeavoured to ascertain from
him the exact hour at which he wrote to me on March 21st. He is not
certain whether the letter to me was written before noon or after
noon of that day. He remembers writing four short letters in the
course of that day--two before luncheon and two after luncheon.
Had the note addressed to me been written in the forenoon, it
might nearly have coincided in time with my dream, if allowance
be made for the difference of time between Greenwich and Naples;
for, having no recollection of the dream when I woke, according to
custom, at an early hour on the morning of the 21st, I presume I
must have dreamt it very little before eight o'clock, the hour at
which I was called.
"I may add that, notwithstanding an absence of twelve years and a
half, my brother has altered very little in appearance; and that I
have not to my knowledge ever noted a dream before in my life."
On April 12th, 1888, Mr. Gurney inspected the diary with the entry
(X, Clem) under Tuesday, March 20th, 1888, though, as Mr. Hamilton
explained, "it was early the next morning that I had the dream, for I
generally consider all that appertains to bed relates to the day on
which one gets into it".
Mr. Gurney also saw the letter signed Clement E. Hamilton, and dated
Naples, March 21st, 1888, which says "am suffering from very severe
attack of gout in left arm."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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