Real Ghost Stories

Journ

ed on the brow of a heath-covered slope that dipped down to a ravine, at the head of which stands Professor Tyndall's house with its famous screen. Hardly a mile away northward lies the Devil's Punch Bowl, with its memorial stone erected in

as is springing up amid the heather as the ground slopes towards Selborne-White's Selborne-that can dimly be descried to the westward beyond Liphook Common. Memories there are, enough and to spare, of the famous days of old, and of the not less famous men of our own time; but the ghosts have fled. "There used to be a gh

ung moon was beginning to struggle through the cloudy sky, and looked down into the ravine which Cobbett declared was the most horrid place God ever made; but no sign of ghostly visitant could be caught among the bracken,

but I had never slept before in a place which ghosts used as a trysting place. I asked my hostess about it. She replied, "Yes, it is quite true; but, although you may not believe it, I am the ghost." "You? How?" "Yes," she replied, quite seriously; "it is quite true what your friends have told you. They did see what you would correctly describe as an apparition. That is to say, they saw a more or less shadowy figure, which they at once identified, and which then gradua

strange, almost savage, fascination for the occult lore of the ancient East. Abandoning the frivolities of Mayfair, she went to Girton, where she plunged into the study of Sanscrit. After leaving Girton, she applied herself to the study of the o

hough

whom I have hitherto appeared have been so scared they could not speak." "But, my dear friend, do you actually mean to say that you have the faculty of--" "Going about in my Thought Body? Most certainly. It is not a very uncommon faculty, but it is one which needs cultivation and development." "But what is a Thought Body?" My hostess smiled: "It is difficult to explain truths on the plane of thought to those who are immersed body and soul in matter. I can only tell you that every person has

our thought

ght Envelope. But I want to have a proper interview while on my thought jo

to appear before me, in my office, as immaterial as g

ther morning at six o'clock, but no one was there. I have not got this curious power as yet under com

be seen and touched, you

er such thought bodies can be photographed. When next I mak

ies will be indispensable henceforth on every enterprising newspaper. It would be a great saving on telegraphy. When my ideal paper comes along, I mentally vowed I woul

own, and in a moment I find myself here at Hindhead. Sometimes I am seen, sometimes I am not. But I am her

o all our garments. It by no means follows that I appear in the same dress as that which is worn by my material body. I remember, whe

hostess was insane, I think I had better introduce the declarations of my two fr

mother I could not see, but took a statement down from her husband, who subsequently

quite distinctly, and saw that she was dressed in the dress in which I had usually seen her in an evening, without bonnet or hat, her hair being plaited low down close to the back of her head. The dress, I said, was the same, but there were two differences which I noticed at once. In her usual dress, the silk front was grey; this time the grey colour had given place to a curious amber, and over her shoulders she wore a shawl of white Indian silk. I noticed it particularly, because the roses embroidered on it at its ends did not correspond with each other. All this I saw as I looked up and heard her

. He told me to go back and hear what Mrs. M. had to say about the matter. When Mrs. M. arrived I told her what I had seen on the preceding evening. She laughed, and said, 'Oh! I was here th

ere, but I did not know where. I started from Hindhead for Wimbledon, but landed at M-- Mansions, where, no doubt, I was more at home." "Then you had no memory of where you had been?" "Not the least." "And what about the shawl?" "The shawl was one that Miss C. had never seen. I had not worn it for two years, and the fact that she saw it and described it, is conclusive evidence against the subjective character of the vision. The originals of all the phantom clothes were at M-- M

ciousness that some one was bending over me. When I opened my eyes I saw in shimmering outline a figure which I recognised at once as that of Mrs. M. She was bending over me, and her great lustrous eyes seemed to pierce my very soul. For a time I lay still, as if paralysed, being unable either to speak or to move, but at last gaining courage with time I ventured to strike a match. As soon as I did so the f

le in the light. In the dark it shone by its own radiance. I was taken seriously ill with a violent palpitation of the heart, and kept my light burning. I felt so utterly upset that I could not remain any longer in th

but until next morning, when I heard of it from Mrs. C. I had no idea that my double had left my room." I said, "This power is rather gruesome, for you might take to haunting me." "I do not think so, unless there was something to be gained which could not be otherwise secured, some benefit to be conferred upon you." "That is to say, if I were in trouble or dangerously ill, and you were anxious about me, your double might come and attend my sick-bed." "That is quite possible," she said imperturbably. "Well," sa

ghost, above all, which wanted to be photographed. It seemed too good to be true. Yet how strange it was! Here we have just been discussing whe

er Aerial

that they had also enjoyed this faculty of bodily duplication. All four ladies are between twenty and forty years of age. Three of them are married.

of a mind, presumably sane, as to the experiences through which it has consciously passed. On the same ground I may refer to the experience of Miss X., the second lady referred to, who, when lying, as it was believed, at the point of death, declares that she was quite conscious of coming out of her

material body and in its immaterial counterpart. She lay on the couch watching the movements of the second self, which at the same moment felt the snow cold under its feet. The second self met a labourer and spoke to him. He replied as if somewhat scared. The second self walked down the road and entered an officer's hut, which was standing empty. She noted the number of guns. There were a score or more of all kinds in all manner of places; remarked upon the quaint looki

ly to the casual passer-by, but also to the material body which had for the

may be worth as much as the confessions of the witches who swore they were dancing with Satan while their husbands held their material bodies clasped in their arms; but any explanation of subjective hallucination or of downr

sant's

pe she is well instructed." "How?" I asked. "Oh," Mrs. Besant replied, "it is all right if she knows what she is about, but it is just as dangerous to go waltzing about on the astral plane as it is for a girl to go skylarking down a dark slum when roughs are about. Elementals, with the desire to live, greedily appropriating

is an as

in the Museum?" "No doubt a clairvoyant could see their astrals keeping their silent watch by the dead. As the body decays so the astral fades away." "But that implies the possibility of a decaying ghost?" "Certainly. An old friend of mine, a lady who bears a well-k

o is well known to many of my readers, and one