Real Ghost Stories by William Thomas Stead (best non fiction books to read txt) 📖

not asleep when she saw what she insisted on then telling him—what she saw, in fact, was; First, a carriage accident—which she did not actually see, but what she saw was the result—a broken carriage, a crowd collected, a figure gently raised and carried into the nearest house, then a figure lying on a bed, which she then recognised as the Duke of Orleans. Gradually friends collecting round the bed—among them several members of the French royal family—the queen, then the king, all silently, tearfully watching the evidently dying duke. One man (she could see his back, but did not know who he was) was a doctor. He stood bending over the duke, feeling his pulse, his watch in the other hand. And then all passed away; she saw no more. As soon as it was daylight she wrote down in her journal all that she had seen. From that journal she read this to me. It was before the days of electric telegraph, and two or more days passed before the Times announced 'The Death of the Duke of Orleans.' Visiting Paris a short time afterwards, she saw and recognised the place of the accident and received the explanation of her impression. The doctor who attended the dying duke was an old friend of hers, and as he watched by the bed his mind had been constantly occupied with her and her family." (Vol. II. p. 160.)

The doctor's sympathy may have been the key to the secret camera of Nature, but it in no wise "explains" how a lady in Edinburgh could see what went on inside a house in Paris so clearly as to know what had happened two days before the intelligence reached the Times.

An African Event Seen in England.

Here is another story where the event occurred in Africa and was seen in England. A correspondent from Wadhurst, West Dulwich, S.E., says:—

"My late husband dreamt a certain curious dream about his brother, Mr. Ralph Holden, who was at that time travelling in the interior of Africa. One morning, in June or July, 1861, my husband woke me with the announcement, 'Ralph is dead.' I said, 'You must be dreaming.' 'No, I am not dreaming now; but I dreamt twice over that I saw Ralph lying on the ground supported by a man.' They learnt afterwards that Ralph must have died about the time when his brother dreamt about him and that he had died in the arms of his faithful native servant, lying under a large tree, where he was afterwards buried. The Holden family have sketches of the tree and the surroundings, and, on seeing it, my husband said, 'Yes, that is exactly the place where I saw Ralph in my dream, dying or dead.'" (Vol. I. p. 141.)

A Vision Which Saved Many Lives.

Dr. Horace Bushnell, in his "Nature and the Supernatural," tells a story, on the authority of Captain Yonnt, which differs from the foregoing in having a definite purpose, which, fortunately, was attained. Captain Yonnt, a patriarch in the Napa valley of California, told Dr. Bushnell that six or seven years before their conversation he had seen a vision which saved several lives. Here is his story:—

"About six or seven years previous, in a mid-winter's night, he had a dream, in which he saw what appeared to be a company of emigrants arrested by the snows of the mountains and perishing rapidly by cold and hunger. He noted the very cast of the scenery, marked by a huge, perpendicular front of white rock cliff; he saw the men cutting off what appeared to be tree-tops rising out of deep gulfs of snow; he distinguished the very features of the persons and the look of their particular distress. He awoke profoundly impressed by the distinctness and apparent reality of the dream. He at length fell asleep, and dreamed exactly the same dream over again. In the morning he could not expel it from his mind. Falling in shortly after with an old hunter comrade, he told his story, and was only the more deeply impressed by his recognising without hesitation the scenery of the dream. This comrade came over the Sierra, by the Carson Valley Pass, and declared that a spot in the Pass answered exactly his description. By this the unsophistical patriarch was decided. He immediately collected a company of men, with mules and blankets and all necessary provisions. The neighbours were laughing meantime at his credulity. 'No matter,' he said, 'I am able to do this, and I will; for I verily believe that the fact is according to my dream.' The men were sent into the mountains one hundred and fifty miles distant, directly to the Carson Valley Pass. And there they found the company exactly in the condition of the dream, and brought in the remnant alive." ("Nature and the Supernatural," p. 14.)

The Vision of a Fire.

The wife of a Dean of the Episcopal Church in one of the Southern States of America was visiting at my house while I was busy collecting materials for this work. Asking her the usual question as to whether she had ever experienced anything of the phenomena usually called supernatural, apparently because it is not the habitual experience of every twenty-four hours, she ridiculed the idea. Ghosts? not she. She was a severely practical, matter-of-fact person, who used her natural senses, and had nothing to do with spirits. But was she quite sure; had nothing ever occurred to her which she could not explain? Then she hesitated and said, "Well, yes; but there is nothing supernatural about it. I was staying away down in Virginia, some hundred miles from home, when one morning, about eleven o'clock, I felt an over-powering sleepiness. I never sleep in the daytime, and that drowsiness was, I think, almost my only experience of that kind. I was so sleepy I went to my room and lay down. In my sleep I saw quite distinctly my home at Richmond in flames. The fire had broken out in one wing of the house, which I saw with dismay was where I kept all my best dresses. The people were all about trying to check the flames, but it was of no use. My husband was there, walking about before the burning house, carrying a portrait in his hand. Everything was quite clear and distinct, exactly as if I had actually been present and seen everything. After a time I woke up, and, going downstairs, told my friends the strange dream I had had. They laughed at me, and made such game of my vision that I did my best to think no more about it. I was travelling about, a day or two passed, and when Sunday came I found myself in a church where some relatives were worshipping. When I entered the pew they looked rather strange, and as soon as the service was over I asked them what was the matter. 'Don't be alarmed,' they said, 'there is nothing serious.' They then handed me a postcard from my husband, which simply said, 'House burned out; covered by insurance.' The date was the day on which my dream occurred. I hastened home, and then I learned that everything had happened exactly as I had seen it. The fire had broken out in the wing which I had seen blazing. My clothes were all burnt, and the oddest thing about it was that my husband, having rescued a favourite picture from the burning building, had carried it about among the crowd for some time before he could find a place in which to put it safely." Swedenborg, it will be remembered, also had a clairvoyant vision of a fire at a great distance.

The Loss of the "Strathmore."

A classic instance of the exercise of this faculty is the story of the wreck of the Strathmore. In brief the story is as follows:—The father of a son who had sailed in the Strathmore, an emigrant ship outward bound from the Clyde, saw one night the ship foundering amid the waves, and saw that his son, with some others, had escaped safely to a desert island near which the wreck had taken place. He was so much impressed by this vision that he wrote to the owner of the Strathmore, telling him what he had seen. His information was scouted; but after awhile the Strathmore was overdue and the owner got uneasy. Day followed day, and still no tidings of the missing ship. Then, like Pharaoh's butler, the owner remembered his sins one day and hunted up the letter describing the vision. It supplied at least a theory to account for the vessel's disappearance. All outward bound ships were requested to look out for any survivors on the island indicated in the vision. These orders being obeyed, the survivors of the Strathmore were found exactly where the father had seen them. In itself this is sufficient to confound all accepted hypotheses. Taken in connection with other instances of a similar nature, what can be said of it excepting that it almost necessitates the supposition of the existence of the invisible camera obscura which the Theosophists describe as the astral light?

The Analogy of the Camera Obscura.

Clairvoyance can often be explained by telepathy, especially when there is strong sympathy between the person who sees and the person who is seen. Mr. Edward R. Lipsitt, of Tralee, sends me the following narrative, which illustrates this fact:—

"I beg to narrate a curious case of telepathy I experienced when quite a boy. Some ten years ago I happened to sleep one night in the same room with a young friend of about my own age. There existed a very strong sympathy between us. I got up early and went out for a short walk, leaving my friend fast asleep in his bed. I went in the direction of a well-known lake in that district. After gazing for some moments at the silent waters, I espied a large black dog making towards me. I turned my back and fled, the dog following me for some distance. My boots then being in a bad condition, one of the soles came off in the flight; however, I came away unmolested by the dog. But how amazed was I when upon entering the room my friend, who was just rubbing his eyes and yawning, related to me my adventure word by word, describing even the colour of the dog and the very boot (the right one) the sole of which gave way!"

Motiveless Visions.

There is often no motive whatever to be discovered in the apparition. A remarkable instance of this is recorded by Mr. Myers in an article in the Arena, where the analogy to a camera obscura is very close. The camera reflects everything that happens. Nothing is either great or small to its impartial lens. But if you do not happen to be in the right place, or if the room is not properly darkened, or if the white paper is taken off the table, you see nothing. We have not yet mastered the conditions of the astral camera. Here, however, is Mr. Myers' story, which he owes to the kindness of Dr. Elliott Coues, who happened to call on Mrs. C—— the very day on which that lady received the following letter from her friend Mrs. B——.