Phantasms of the Living - Volume I.. Frank Podmore
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on the afternoon of the same day, or later in the morning, that she called. I asked her, as usual [for she suffered from neuralgia], if she had had a good night, and she at once commenced to narrate as I have told you. When she had told me all, I begged her at once to go home and write it down. The account which I sent to you was the result; and it compared accurately with a few scribbled notes in pencil which I had hastily jotted down as she was relating it to me originally.”
The following is the percipient’s account:—
“Yesterday, viz., the morning of Nov. 16,1886, about half-past 3 o’clock, I woke up with a start, and an idea that someone had come into the room. I also heard a curious sound, but fancied it might be the birds in the ivy outside. Next I experienced a strange, restless longing to leave the room and go downstairs. This feeling became so overpowering that at last I rose, and lit a candle, and went down, thinking if I could get some soda-water it might have a quieting effect. On returning to my room, I saw Mr. Godfrey standing under the large window on the staircase. He was dressed in his usual style, and with an expression on his face that I have noticed when he has been looking very earnestly at anything. He stood there, and I held up the candle and gazed at him for 3 or 4 seconds in utter amazement; and then, as I passed up the staircase, he disappeared. The impression left on my mind was so vivid that I fully intended waking a friend who occupied the same room as myself; but remembering I should only be laughed at as romantic and imaginative, refrained from doing so.
“I was not frightened at the appearance of Mr. Godfrey, but felt much excited and could not sleep afterwards.”
In conversation with Mrs. —— (Nov. 22, 1886), Mr. Podmore learnt that she is a good sleeper, and not given to waking at nights. She does not remember ever before having experienced anything like the feeling which she had on first waking up. She was at the bottom of the stairs when she saw Mr. Godfrey’s figure, which appeared on the landing, about 11 steps up. It was quite distinct and life-like at first,—though she does not remember noticing more than the upper part of the body; as she looked, it grew more and more shadowy, and finally faded away. It must be added that she has seen in her life two other phantasmal appearances, which represented a parent whom she had recently lost. But a couple of experiences of this sort, coming at a time of emotional strain, cannot be regarded as a sign of any abnormal liability to subjective hallucinations (see p. 510); and even if she was destined anyhow to experience one other, the chances against its representing one particular member of her acquaintance, at the very time when he happened for the first time in his life to be making the effort above described, would be at least many hundreds of thousands to 1.
We requested Mr. Godfrey to make another trial, without of course giving Mrs. —— any reason to expect that he would do so. He made a trial at once, thinking that we wanted the result immediately, though he himself thought the time unsuitable; and this was a failure. But on Dec. 8, 1886, he wrote as follows:—
“My friend Mrs. —— has just been in, and given me an account of what she experienced last night; she is gone home to write it out for you, and it will be enclosed with mine. I can state that I have not attempted one experiment since I last communicated with you; therefore there are no failures to record. I was at Mrs. ——’s house last evening, and she testifies this morning that she had not the faintest suspicion that I intended attempting another experiment. The first words she used on seeing me this morning were (laughingly) ‘Well, I saw you last night, anyway.’
“All the interest, as on the former occasion, of course lies with the percipient. I may simply explain that I acted as on the former occasion—viz., concentrated my attention on the percipient, while I was undressing; then devoted some 10 minutes, when in bed, to intense effort to transport myself to her presence, and make my presence felt both by voice and touch,—viz., placing my hand upon the percipient’s head. Then I fell asleep, slept well, and was conscious of nothing sufficiently vivid to awake me.
“Directly I awoke at my usual time, about 6.40 a.m., I guessed that I had succeeded, because I instantly remembered that I had dreamt (as last time) of meeting the lady next day, and asking her the same question—viz., whether she had seen me, and the answer was, ‘Yes, I saw you indistinctly.’ This reflex action is very important, and I would undertake to tell, on any occasion, whether I had failed or succeeded. The words of reply (above) were written down by me on paper1 before hearing the percipient’s account.
“This case is, I think, very instructive, because of the sound of voice, as well as of sight.”
Mr. Godfrey adds that Mrs. ——, though she appeared in good spirits, had been “frightened and a little unnerved”; and that he should not feel justified in repeating the experiment.
The percipient’s account, written on Dec. 8, 1886, is as follows:—
“Last night, Tuesday, Dec. 7th, I went upstairs at half-past 10. I remember distinctly locking the bed-room door, which this morning, to my astonishment, was unlocked. I was soon asleep, and had a strange dream of taking flowers to a grave. Suddenly I heard a voice say ‘Wake,’ and felt a hand rest on the left side of my head. (I was lying on the right side.) I was wide awake in a second, and heard a curious sound in the room, something like a Jew’s harp. I felt a cold breath streaming over me, and violent palpitation of the heart came on; and I also distinctly saw a figure leaning over me. The only light in the room was from the lamp outside, which makes a long line on the wall over the wash-stand. This line was partly obscured by the figure. I turned round at once, and the hand seemed to slip from my head to the pillow beside me. The figure was stooping over me, and I felt it leaning up against the side of the bed. I saw the arm resting on the pillow the whole time it remained. I saw an outline of the face, but it seemed as if a mist were before it. I think the time when it came must have been about half-past 12. It had drawn the curtain of the bed slightly back, but this morning I noticed it was hanging straight as usual. The figure was undoubtedly that of Mr. Godfrey. I knew it by the appearance of the shoulders and the shape of the face. The whole time it remained, there was a draught of cold air streaming through the room, as if both door and window were open. I heard the dining-room clock strike half-past something; and as I could not sleep again, but heard the clock strike hours and half-hours consecutively up to 5 o’clock, I think I am right in saying the time was half-past 12.”
I have drawn attention (pp. 165-6, and Vol. II., p. 170) to the fact that the first-hand evidence for telepathic experiences includes no reports of physical changes produced in the material world—which, if they occurred, would be impossible to account for by the hypothesis of a temporary psychical transference from one mind to another. A percipient may have the hallucination of seeing the door opening (p. 102, note); but the door not having really been moved, it of course is not afterwards found open. So, in the above account, the curtain, which seemed to the percipient to be shifted at the time of her experience, was found in its place in the morning. On the other hand, the door, which she says that she had locked, was found unlocked. On being questioned as to this, she replies that the door is habitually locked at night, and that she does not walk in her sleep; but she thinks it probable that, after locking the door, she left the room to get some matches, and that she omitted to lock it again on her return. If anyone, after this, should be inclined to connect the unlocking with the apparition, I would suggest to him that a “ghost” which has shown its capacity to walk through a closed hall-door would, on finding a bed-room door locked on the inside, be more likely to walk through it than to unlock it.
1 See, for instance, the Histoire des Camisards (London, 1754), p. 333, note. The view of Cavallier there cited from De Brueys’ Histoire du Fanatisme (Utrecht, 1737), need not be discounted because in the same work he is called a scélérat; that being De Brueys’ generic term for a Camisard leader.
2 No further testimony of Cavallier’s on the subject seems to have been known to the author of the Examen du Théâtre Sacré des Cevennes (London, 1708, p. 34). He is not even stated to have