TKLKPATHY. 



709 



la-t term at the I'nivcrsily of Oxford. He was 

 subject to neuralgic headaches, arid one evening, 

 when In- had an unusually violent one, lit; went 

 into his I'eiln "'in about '. v. M. and Hun;; himself, 

 without undressing, on the bed, and soon fell 

 as|i <]). "I then liad," lie writes, "a singularly 

 clear and vivid dream, all the incidents of which 

 are >iill as clear t<> my memory as ever. I 

 dreamed that I was stopping with the family of 

 the lady who subsequently became my wife. All 

 t he younger ones had gone to bed, and I Mopped 

 chatting to the father and mother, standing up 

 by the lireplace. Presently 1 bade them good- 

 night, took my candle, and went off to bed. On 

 arriving in ttie hall, I perceived that my fiancee 

 had been detained downstairs, and was only then 

 near the top of the staircase. 1 rushed upstairs, 

 overtook her on the top step, and passed my two 

 arms round her waist, under her arms, from be- 

 hind. Although 1 was carrying my candle in 

 my left hand when I ran upstairs, this did not, 

 in my dream, interfere with this gesture. On 

 this 1 woke, and a clock in the house struck ten 

 almost immediately afterward. So strong was 

 the impression of the dream that 1 wrote a de- 

 tailed account of it next morning to my fiancee. 

 ( 'rossing my letter, not in answer to it, 1 received 

 a letter from the lady in question : ' Were you 

 thinking about me very specially last night just 

 about ten o'clock f For, as I was going upstairs 

 to bed, I distinctly heard your footsteps on the 

 stairs and felt you put your arms round my 

 waist.' The letters in question are now destroyed, 

 but we verified the statement made therein some 

 years later, when we read over our old letters 

 previous to their destruction." Mrs. Newnham 

 has also given, in writing, under the date of June 

 9, 1884, her recollection of the occurrence, which 

 perfectly corroborates that of her husband. This 

 is the only experience of the sort she had ever 

 had (" Phantasms of the Living," i, pp. 225-227). 



Here we observe that the mind of Mr. Newn- 

 ham was occupied with his fiancee, and traced 

 out a sequence of actions concerning her. At 

 the same hour her mind pictured him perform- 

 ing these very actions. In some way the thoughts 

 passing through his mind were caused to pass 

 through her mind. They were not communi- 

 cated by voice, letter, or telegraph, hence the 

 inference that his mind must have been able to 

 impress hers directly. 



The foregoing case concerns a pleasurable in- 

 cident, and in this respect belongs to a small 

 class. Far more common are such as follow, 

 which relate to injury and death. Of the 668 

 cases enumerated in "Phantasms of the Living," 

 399 occur upon the death of the agent. 



Two friends, a young lady and a gentleman, 

 had made the common agreement that which- 

 ever died first would try to visit the other. 

 Years passed; the gentleman, Capt. W.. was in 

 New Zealand, the lady, Miss H.. was in England. 

 One night Miss R. woke with a feeling that some 

 one was in her room. She had a bright light 

 burning, and behind the table on which it stood 

 she saw a misty image of a man's head and 

 shoulders gradually form, and recognized it as the 

 image of her friend. She got up and made a note 

 of the date, thinking that Capt. W. must lie dead. 

 His relatives heard no news from him for an 

 unusually long time ; then a brief note came from 



him which read : " Have had a severe fall off the 

 roach; can't write: head all wrong ntill." On in- 

 vestigation, Mi-s It. found that it wa* during the 

 time when (apt. \V. was insensible from hi* fall 

 that she saw him. The injury did not cause 

 death. (" Phantasms of the Living," i, 527-528.) 



The impression received by Miss R. was a vis- 

 ual one; those in the two that follow are audi- 

 tory. In some cases both the image of the 

 agent and the sound of his voice are perceived. 



An English lady, Mrs. Evens, had been at 

 a school in France when a girl, and formed a 

 deep attachment for one of the principals, Mme. 

 II. Mrs. Evens has narrated that the year 

 after she left France, in September, 1858, she 

 awoke one night as if she had been called. She 

 saw nothing, but heard distinctly in the well- 

 known and beloved voice of her friend the 

 words, "Adieu, ma cherie" (Mme. H.'s name for 

 her). A week afterward she heard that Mme. 

 II. had died suddenly on the night of her expe- 

 rience. Many years afterward Mrs. Evens 

 learned that the French lady was supposed to 

 have committed suicide, and she fully believes 

 that her friend desired to take leave of her, and, 

 being a woman of strong will, had succeeded in 

 transmitting her adieu. (" Phantasms of the 

 Living," ii, pp. 690-692.) 



But now admitting that persons seem to see 

 images and hear voices, as in the foregoing nar- 

 ratives, what are these phenomena, it has been 

 asked, but hallucinations such as every alienist 

 is familiar with as the product of a morbidly 

 stimulated brain f To this query the Society 

 for Psychical Research replies, (1st) that the 

 percipients in a large number of its cases never 

 had but one such experience ; (2d) that telep- 

 athic hallucinations are not merely of some 

 human form like most of the morbid sort, but 

 represent a person whom the percipient recog- 

 nizes; (3d) that telepathic hallucinations are 

 veridical i. e., at the time when the impression 

 is perceived the mind of the agent is being vio- 

 lently exercised by the approach of death or in 

 some other way ; (4th) that while one person af- 

 fected with nervous disease might have a given 

 hallucination, the same thing would not be likely 

 to appear to another, whereas telepathic halluci- 

 nations have been perceived by more than one 

 percipient at the same moment. The following 

 will serve as a sample of these "collective 

 cases. The impression received was auditory, 

 but other cases are on record in which it was 

 visual : In 1854 there was a family named 

 Focke, living in Dtlsseldorf. and the eldest 

 daughter, Anna, had sailed for Batavia, island 

 of Java, as companion in the family of a Dutch 

 Government official. One evening soon after- 

 ward, when Mrs. Focke, with the rest of her 

 family, was at tea, they all heard a loud cry of 

 " Mother !" outside the window. They all rec- 

 ognized at once the voice of Anna, and rushed 

 to the window, but saw nothing. Scarcely had 

 they taken their seats again when a most ago- 

 ni/.ing shriek was heard, and twice "Mother! 

 Mother!" was called in the same voice. In 

 a -hort time news came that on that very even- 

 ing the ves-el on which Miss Focke had sailed 

 was lost with all on board. 



There are several reasons why the Society for 

 Psychical Research regards as a phantasm of 



