332 



MY LIFE 



{Chap. 



without oven attempting to show how, under the same con- 

 ditions, such effects can be produced. 



Before leaving the subject of my experiences of spiritualism 

 and spiritualists in England, I will give a case of the strange 

 phenomenon called the " double," so well authenticated and 

 so instructive as to deserve to be here recorded. About the 

 year 1874, Mr. Pengelly, of Torquay, had sent me his very 

 interesting critical article, " Is it a Fact ? " in which, to my 

 great surprise, I found an anecdote describing the strange 

 appearance of the doubles of several persons to a friend of 

 his (apparently), as he says he can vouch for it. When, as 

 narrated in Chapter XXVI., we dined together at Glasgow, 

 I took the opportunity of asking him privately whether I was 

 right in my conjecture that the person to whom the event 

 happened was himself, thinly disguised under the pseudonym, 

 Mr. Hazelwood (Pengelly meaning in Cornish the head of the 

 hazel-grove). He replied, " You are right ; " which led me to 

 read it again with still greater interest. 



In 1883, thinking the case would be one suited for the 

 Psychical Research Society, I sent the paper to my friend, 

 F. W. H. Myers, telling him what Mr. Pengelly had told me ; 

 and Miss Pengelly has allowed me to copy a letter from Mr. 

 Myers to her father, thanking him for the additional informa- 

 tion he had received about the case, and saying, that as the 

 distance at which the figures were seen was so small, " It is 

 almost inconceivable that you could have mistaken other 

 persons for your own family at that distance, especially as 

 the train must have been almost or quite at a standstill." 

 But he did not publish the case, and it was probably, among 

 the mass of other matter, forgotten. I now give the story as 

 it occurs in Mr. Pengelly's paper, " Is it a Fact ? " (p. 32). 



"The following case, for which I can vouch, may serve 

 to illustrate this.^ It will be found to be supported by both 

 personal and circumstantial evidence : — Mr, Hazelwood, of 

 Torquay, having a few years since to go to Dawlish, informed 



^ The disbelief in witchcraft, notwithstanding the mass of good testimony 

 supporting it. 



