The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-SeersCrowe, Catherine
Religion
The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers
Crowe, Catherine
Ghosts; Parapsychology
A Mr. J—— S——, belonging to a highly respectable family, with whom I
am acquainted, having been for some time in declining health, was sent
abroad for change of air. During his absence, one of his sisters, having
been lately confined, an old servant of the family was sitting half
asleep in an arm-chair, in a room adjoining that in which the lady
slept, when she was startled by hearing the foot of Mr. J—— S——
ascending the stairs. It was easily recognisable, for, owing to his
constant confinement to the house, in consequence of his infirm health,
his shoes were always so dry that their creaking was heard from one end
of the house to the other. So far surprised out of her recollection as
to forget he was not in the country, the good woman started up, and,
rushing out with her candle in her hand, to light him, she followed the
steps up to Mr. J—— S——’s own bed-chamber, never discovering that he
was not preceding her till she reached the door. She then returned,
quite amazed, and having mentioned the occurrence to her mistress, they
noted the date; and it was afterward ascertained that the young man had
died at Lisbon on that night.
Mrs. F—— tells me that, being one morning, at eleven o’clock, engaged
in her bed-room, she suddenly heard a strange, indescribable, sweet, but
unearthly sound, which apparently proceeded from a large open box which
stood near her. She was seized with an awe and a horror which there
seemed nothing to justify, and fled up stairs to mention the
circumstance, which she could not banish from her mind. At that precise
day and hour, eleven o’clock, her brother was drowned. The news reached
her two days afterward.
Instances of this kind are so well known that it is unnecessary to
multiply them further. With respect to the mode of producing these
sounds, however, I should be glad to say something more definite if I
could; but, from the circumstance of their being heard not only by one
person, who might be supposed to be _en rapport_, or whose constructive
imagination might be acted upon, but by any one who happens to be within
hearing, we are led to conclude that the sounds are really reverberating
through the atmosphere. In the strange cases recorded in “The Seeress of
Prevorst,” although the apparitions were visible only to certain
persons, the sounds they made were audible to all; and the seeress says
they are produced by means of the nerve-spirit, which I conclude is the
spiritual body of St. Paul and the atmosphere, as we produce sound by
means of our _material_ body and the atmosphere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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