Ghosts I Have Seen, and Other Psychic ExperiencesTweedale, Violet
Religion
Ghosts I Have Seen, and Other Psychic Experiences
Tweedale, Violet
Ghosts; Parapsychology
Just for an instant I saw nothing but what looked like an enormous
pillow, but suddenly out of this grayish-green pillow emerged a head of
frog-like shape, and two bright yellow eyes were fixed on mine. I
suppose I was too terrified even to remember what my sensations were. A
sort of paralysis of fear and horror held me spellbound. There it
squatted, thrusting out its misshapen head, its yellow eyes regarding me
fixedly. I have no idea how long it remained there, or how long we
continued to gaze at one another, but I gradually became aware that it
was receding from view. It grew smaller and smaller, and dimmer and
more indistinct, till at length it vanished altogether.
Elliott O'Donnell mentions in one of his books having seen such
creatures, and of having had a number of such cases reported to him, but
generally as the forerunners of illness. To such phantasms he has given
the name of "Morbas," and he believes that certain apparitions are
symbolical of certain diseases "if not the actual creators of the
bacilli from which these diseases arise." This seems to me to be a
reasonable explanation of such phenomena, but in my case there was no
disease in question. I was perfectly well at the time, and remained so.
It is possible, however, that a sick person might have occupied my room
the night before. One never knows in hotels, and I had not then read
O'Donnell's explanation and made no inquiries. Many of the experiences
related in his deeply interesting books are no doubt regarded as
fiction, but I know that they are cases common to very many psychics.
For some time I lay awake, fearful of a recurrence of the horrible
phenomenon, but gradually sleep overcame me, and I did not wake again
till seven o'clock on a lovely summer morning.
That day I took two long walks, closely followed by my escort. They
walked immediately behind me, and often we stopped to converse, or to
sit down to rest and smoke a cigarette together. They told me all their
family history, and about their wives and children, and really they made
themselves as agreeable as they possibly could. In the afternoon we
climbed up the mountains to one of the many cafés, and had chocolate and
cakes, which they thoroughly enjoyed. When I finally went back to the
hotel for the night they complained of being tired, and hoped I would
not walk so far on the morrow. Their idea of enjoyment was the usual
foreign custom of taking a seat outside a street café, and sitting there
hour after hour idly watching the passers-by, smoking endless cigarettes
and drinking beer.
That night I prepared myself for a recurrence of the abnormal phenomenon
I had witnessed, and gathered up all my courage, and decided to attack
it with the Sacred command. For a long time I lay awake, but nothing
happened, and finally I fell asleep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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