Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily DeathMyers, F. W. H. (Frederic William Henry)
Religion
Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death
Myers, F. W. H. (Frederic William Henry)
Immortality; Parapsychology; Personality
In the first place then--as already explained in Chapter VI.--I in some
sense fuse into one Mrs. Sidgwick's two first hypotheses by my own
hypothesis of actual presence, actual spatial changes induced in the
metetherial, but not in the material world. I hold that when the
phantasm is discerned by more than one person at once (and on some
other, but not all other occasions) it is actually effecting a change in
that portion of space where it is perceived, although not, as a rule, in
the matter which occupies that place. It is, therefore, not optically
nor acoustically perceived; perhaps no rays of light are reflected nor
waves of air set in motion; but an unknown form of supernormal
perception, not necessarily acting through the sensory end-organs, comes
into play. In the next place, I am inclined to lay stress on the
parallel between these narratives of haunting and those phantasms of the
living which I have already classed as _psychorrhagic_. In each case,
as it seems to me, there is an involuntary detachment of some element of
the spirit, probably with no knowledge thereof at the main centre of
consciousness. Those "haunts by the living," as they may be called,
where, for instance, a man is seen phantasmally standing before his own
fireplace, seem to me to be repeated, perhaps more readily, after the
spirit is freed from the flesh.
Again, I think that the curious question as to the influence of certain
_houses_ in generating apparitions may be included under the broader
heading of Retrocognition. That is to say, we are not here dealing with
a special condition of certain houses, but with a branch of the wide
problem as to the relation of supernormal phenomena to _time_.
Manifestations which occur in haunted houses depend, let us say, on
something which has taken place a long time ago. In what way do they
depend on that past event? Are they a sequel, or only a residue? Is
there fresh operation going on, or only fresh perception of something
already accomplished? Or can we in such a case draw any real distinction
between a continued action and a continued perception of a past action?
The closest parallel, as it seems to me, although not at first sight an
obvious one, lies between these phenomena of haunting, these persistent
sights and sounds, and certain phenomena of crystal-vision and of
automatic script, which also seem to depend somehow upon long-past
events,--to be their sequel or their residue. One specimen case I give
in Appendix (VII. G), where the connection of the haunting apparition
with a certain person long deceased may be maintained with more than
usual plausibility. From that level the traceable connections get weaker
and weaker, until we come to phantasmal scenes where there is no longer
any even apparent claim to the contemporary agency of human spirits.
Such a vision, for instance, as that of a line of spectral deer crossing
a ford, may indeed, if seen in the same place by several independent
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account