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
"My nephew's accident occurred on Monday night. Being out of town
I heard of it on Tuesday afternoon. I immediately went to Boston
and returned the same evening about nine o'clock, feeling greatly
distressed. I wrote a letter to my husband after my return
describing the accident and retired to bed rather late and passed
a restless night. The telegram received from my husband rather
surprised me, as he is not usually anxious when away from home. I
believe this is all I know connected with this incident.
ELIZABETH TUDOR."
An account of a similar experience was sent to us in 1889 by the late
Sir John Drummond Hay, K.C.B. He wrote that about 1 A.M. on some day
in February 1879 he heard distinctly the voice of his daughter-in-law
saying, "Oh, I wish papa only knew that Robert was ill." Sir John awoke
Lady Drummond Hay to tell her what he had heard, and made a note of the
incident in his diary. It was shortly ascertained that Mr. R. D. Hay
had been taken seriously ill on that night, and that Mrs. Hay had used
the words heard. Sir John's account is confirmed by Lady Hay and Mrs.
R. D. Hay.
_Visual Hallucinations._
The comparative frequency of auditory hallucinations, and especially
the ease with which auditory illusions can be built up on a basis of
real sound, render coincidences of the kind, even the best attested, of
less service to support, however valuable as illustrating, the theory
of telepathy. Visual hallucinations, however, present us with a much
rarer type of impression, and one in which explanation by illusion
is comparatively seldom possible. Telepathic hallucinations, like
ordinary non-coincidental hallucinations, may assume various forms, and
instances of grotesque and partially developed visual impressions are
not wanting. Thus we have a case in which the face of a dying relative
was recognised in the middle of a large ball of light like a firework
(_Journal_, October 1891); and Mr. Sherer, of Amble, Northumberland,
tells us that he saw reflected in a ship's compass the face of a young
lady to whom he was engaged, at about the time of her death. In the
following case the hallucination, though still far from complete,
appears to have been more realistic and more fully developed.
No. 70.--From COUNTESS EUGENIE KAPNIST.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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