680 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH OF THE CENTURY. 



Voltaire's connection with tiio house, iind forgotten!! Again, a young 

 Aniei-ican. when making u)) his l)ooks in a hotel, sees the phantasm of 

 his (lead sister, with a long scratch on her cheek. His mother tells 

 him what sh(^ had kept secret, that she herself accidentally scratched 

 the cheek of the corpse, as she arranged flowers in the cofhn, and that 

 she concealed it by aid of powder. Rut. granting telepathy, was not 

 the phant^ism a ])rojecti()n from the mind of the mother, who knew the 

 fact!! It is plain that telepathy, if accepted, makes it almost impos- 

 silde for a ghost to })rove his identity. He can do this only by com- 

 municating knowledge contained in no incarnate mind, but afterwards 

 discovered to exist in some long-lost document oi- other source of (evi- 

 dence. The nearest ap{)roach known to me to such a thing is in the 

 c-ase of Queen Marv's secret jewels, (rregory published a *' vision'' of 

 the.se jewels, with many attendant circumstances, beheld hy a hypno- 

 tiz(Hl young man. Several years later was discovered, in a heap of old 

 law papers in the Scottish Register House, an inventory of Queen 

 Mary's jewels. Still later the inventory was pul)lished by Dr. Joseph 

 Kol»ert^on. I compai'ed the iin'cntory with the account of the vision 

 and the results were, to a consideral>le degree, corroborative. But 

 corro))oration of this kind, in the nature of the case, must be very rare. 



Thus any knowledge contributed l)v a .seeming ])hantasm of the dead 

 may be ex})lained away by a sweeping theory of telepathy. 'Vho phan- 

 tasm makes you awar(> of this or that fact, which is verified. But, if 

 the xcrifving evidence may conceivably have become known, say to a 

 (ierman savant working in the Sultan's lil)rary, then it may be urged 

 tha'i the (xerman savant unconsciously "wired on" his information 

 to you in the .shape of an halluciniition. This theory is not easily 

 accepted, but it may i)e more credil)le than the hypothesis of an hallu- 

 cination caused l>y a disincarnate mind. 



As to ''haunted hou.ses," the society has occupied many, to little 

 purpose, (ihosts. indeed, are seen, and astonishing noises are heard 

 by such members of the investigating parties as are in the wa}' of 

 experiencing hallucinations wherever they go. But that proves noth- 

 ing. I myself stayed for a week in a ''haunted house," Avhence the 

 noises had evicted a large shooting party, but nothhig beyond the nor- 

 mal swam into ni}^ ken. To be sure, I had asked for as quiet a room 

 as possible — I certaiidy got it. As far as the researches of the society 

 go, the ghosts retreat before them, whereas, on the theory that the 

 society are superstitious fools, they ought to see ghosts in exceeding 

 abundance l)y dint of expectation. It would appear that haunted 

 houses are local centers of a permanent possibility of hallucination. 

 Thus in an old house at St. Andrews a cheerful famil}^ last year con- 

 stantly met an unknow' n lady on the stairs. She always went into the 

 same room, but never was found there when pursued. The clieerful 

 family regarded her as a pleasing peculiaritv of the mansion. This 



