Historic Ghosts and Ghost HuntersBruce, H. Addington (Henry Addington)
Religion
Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters
Bruce, H. Addington (Henry Addington)
Ghosts
Thus far, then, depending on the argument from analogy, the presumption
is strong that Lurancy's case belongs to the same category as the cases
just mentioned. In the one, as in the others, we have loss of the
original self, development of a new self, and the enactment by the
latter of a role conspicuously alien from that played by the former. The
one difficulty in the way of unreserved acceptance of this view is the
character of the secondary personality which replaced Lurancy's original
personality. Here the positive claim was made that the secondary
personality was in reality the personality of a girl long dead, and by
way of proof vivid knowledge of the life, circumstances, and conduct of
that girl was offered. But on this point considerable light is shed by
the discovery that in a number of instances of secondary personality in
which no supernatural pretensions are advanced there is a notable
sharpening of the faculties, knowledge being obtained telepathically or
clairvoyantly; and by the further discovery that it is quite possible to
create experimentally secondary selves assuming the characteristics of
real persons who have died.
In this the creative force is nothing more or less than suggestion.
There is on record, indeed, an instance of mediumship in which the
medium, an amateur investigator of the phenomena of spiritism, clearly
recognized that his various impersonations were suggested to him by the
spectators. This gentleman, Mr. Charles H. Tout, of Vancouver, records
that after attending a few seances with some friends he felt a strong
impulse to turn medium himself, and assume a foreign personality.
Yielding to the impulse, he discovered, much to his amazement, that
without losing complete control of his consciousness, he could develop a
secondary self that would impose on the beholders as a discarnate
spirit. On one occasion he thus acted in a semi-conscious way the part
of a dead woman, the mother of a friend present, and the impersonation
was accepted as a genuine case of spirit control. On another, having
given several successful impersonations, he suddenly felt weak and ill,
and almost fell to the floor.
At this point, he stated, one of the sitters "made the remark, which I
remember to have overheard, 'It is father controlling him,' and I then
seemed to realize who I was and whom I was seeking. I began to be
distressed in my lungs, and should have fallen if they had not held me
by the hands and let me back gently upon the floor.... I was in a
measure still conscious of my actions, though not of my surroundings,
and I have a clear memory of seeing myself in the character of my dying
father lying in the bed and in the room in which he died. It was a most
curious sensation. I saw his shrunken hands and face, and lived again
through his dying moments; only now I was both myself, in an indistinct
sort of way, and my father, with his feelings and appearance."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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