Real Ghost Stories

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there be real ghost stories w

as many persons who testify they have seen apparitions as there are men of science who have examined the microbe. You and I, who have seen neither, must perforce take the testimony

ot occurred within their personal experience, I preface the report of my "Census of Hallucinations" or personal experiences of the so-called supernatural by a preliminary chapter on the perplexing subject of "Personality." This is the ques

fully and sometimes never conscious, but which nevertheless inhabits the innermost recesses of our personality. The theory of these researchers is that besides the body and the mind, meaning by the mind the Conscious Personality, there is also within our material frame the soul or Unconscious Personality, the nature of which is

robe wage the mortal strife on which our health depends. Every white corpuscle that swims in our veins is now declared to be the armed Knight of Life for ever on the look-out for the microbe Fiend of Death. Day and night, sleeping and waking, the white knights of life are constantly on the alert, for on their vigilance hangs our existence. Sometimes, however, the i

nute bacilli that swarm in our blood has only the interest which attaches to the conflict of inarticulate and apparently unconscious animalcul?. The strife to which researches into the nature and constitution of our mental proc

sions through the five senses, and through them alone, is it the only dweller in this mortal tabernacle? May there not be other personalities, or at least one other that is not conscious, when we are awake, and alert, and about, but which comes into semi-consciousness

one knows Mr. Louis Stevenson's wonderful story of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." The dual nature of man, the warfare between this body of sin and death, and the spiritual aspirations of the soul, forms part of the common stock of our orthodox belief. But the facts which recent researches have brought to light seem to point not to

consciousness was so continuous that he led, to all intents and purposes, two lives. When he slept he resumed his dream existence at the point when he waked, just as we resume our consciousness at the point when we fall asleep. It was just as real to him as the life which he lived when awake. It was actual, progressive, continuous, but entirely different, holding no relation whatever to his waking life. Of his two existences he preferred that which was spent in sleep, as more vivid, more varied,

ers[1] , to which I refer all those who wish to make a serious study of this novel and startling hypothesis. B

of its partner, excepting as a mere appendage and convenience to itself. Then there is the Unconscious Personality, which corresponds to the wife who keeps cupboard and storehouse, and the old stocking which treasures up the accumulated wealth of impressions acquired by the Conscious Personality, but who is never able to assert any right to anything, or to the use of sense or limb except when her lord and master is asleep or entranced. When the Conscious Personality has acquire

thought is transferred without using the five senses. This under-soul is in touch with the over-soul, which, in Emerson's noble phrase, "abolishes time and space." "This influence of the senses has," he says, "in most men, overpowered their mind to that degree that the walls of time and space have come to look real and insurmountable; and to speak with levity of thes

no voice which it cannot hear, and to allow the silent mistress to be open-souled to God. Hence the stress which all spiritual religions have laid upon contemplation, upon prayer and fasting. Whether it is an Indian Yogi, or a Trappist Monk, or one of our own Quakers, it is all the same. In the words of the Revivalist hymn, "We must lay our deadly doing down,"

other self wakes it finds the mislaid memorandum, so to speak, ready to its hand. Sometimes, as in the case of somnambulism, the Sub-conscious Personality stealthily endeavours to use the body and limbs, from all direct control over which it is shut out as absolutely as the inmate of a Hindu zenana is forbidden to mount the charger of her warrior spouse. But it is only when the Conscious Personality is thrown into a state of hypnotic trance that the Unconscious Personality is ema

an intrigue with a married woman. The Sub-conscious Personality is no longer faithful exclusively to its natural partner; it is under the control of the Conscious Personality of a

re for the splitting of our personality? The que

nge instances of a dual personality, in which there appear to be t

lowing experiment which, although simplicity itself, gives u

The subject is then wakened, and M. Janet pricks the insensitive limb in several places. He asks, 'Do you feel anything?' The conscious-awakened person replies with the lips, 'No,' but at the same time, in accordance with the signal t

Ret

lity" (Longman

e-Souled

ject, sends me the following delightful story about an Irishman who se

de of his body and the Catholic the left, 'so that he would not be annoyed wid them quarrelling in his inside.' The sympathies of the host were with the green and against the orange, and he tried to weaken the latter by starving him, and for months would only chew his food on the left side of his mouth. The lunatic was not very troublesome, as a rule, but the attendants generally had to straight-waistcoat him

rne and A

xix.) of the Psychical Research Society's Proceedings, as having occurred on Rhode Island some years ago

able, expecting to return the same afternoon from the city. He drew out of the bank 551 dollars, and paid several small bills, after which he went to his nephew's store, 121, Broad Street, and

of time between January 17th and March 14th. He was brought home by his relatives, who, by diligent inquiry were able to make out that Mr. Ansel Bourne, five weeks after leaving Rhode Island, opened a shop in Norristown, and stocked it

een accustomed to sleep in. He noticed the electric light opposite his windows. He rose and pulled away the curtains and looked out on the street. He felt very weak, and thought that he had been drugged. His nex

e corner of Dorrance and Broad Streets, in Providence, on his way from the store of his

fe, he said, was "mixed up." He only remembered that he was confused, wanted to get somewhere and have rest. He did not remember how he left Norristown. His mind was confused, and since then it was a blank. He had no memory whatever of his name or of his second marriage and the place of his birth. He remembered, however, the date of his birth, and of his first wife's death, and his trade. But between January 17th, 1887, and March 14th he was not himself but another,

ench hypnotists carry us much further. In their hands this Sub-conscious Personality is capable of development, of tuition, and of emancipation. In this little suspected region lies a great resource. For when the Conscious Pe