Morning journal and courier., 1882-12-04
Blindness and Ghosts. From London Society,1

We hear of marvellous ghost stories, more or less authenticated and some time ago one of our newspapers teemed with records of ghostly personal experiences, ,any one of which almost might serve to illustrate my notion. But without selecting any special one, let us take the gist of what certain class of these point to-the commonest class-that is, where some beloved one far away appears, so to speak, in propria persona, and in more or less substantial form of course to the in tense astonishment and terror, to use the mildest term, of the witness. Later on it is discovered that this beloved one has at that identical moment been in great peril of his or her life, or has actually died. This. say, is the pith of the commonest sort of ghost story, and has formed the basis of many pop uIar traditions, novels and dramas, that of the tCorsiean Brothers" being notable example and, in a way, it's very commences seems to make it confirmatory of what few people doubt-viz., that the mind of one person may be under the sway of another, either through intense sympathy or love or through a superior strength of will, and which sway is not appreciably lessened by what we understand as physical distance. Given, then, the existence of this sway in some particular case of seeing person, and where the natural conditions are favorable to him-favorable, that B. in that he is eith- CT ordinarily or temporarily, through low state of health, nervous and sensitive, and is, moreover, normally what is called person who lives in the clouds-and it shall be quito \ possible for him, according to my notion, to pass into a mental state entirely consonant to that of the blind. Oblivious of all facts around him, wrapped up in his own thoughts and which, if not consciously, are never the1ess tending toward the absent one whom he dominates or is dominated by, or between whom and himself there exists some sort of bond-he sits breeding or is lying in bed, when, hey, presto he suddenly thinks he sees the absent one standing before him. palpably, unmistakably and precisely as 8 blind man would do in similar circumstances Of course, the mental condition of both is not easy to define, but it is, l fancy, very much akin-much more than at first might think. To the blind man the presence would be a positive reality-as real, that is, as anything he ever sees and If, in way, the man not blind is reduced to the same con dition for the time, as l feel inclined to in- sist he is, the ghost is as much reality to the one as to the other; at any rate, it takes the same hold, making the same impressions and producing the same mental results. The only difference would be- when the first effect of the surprise, momentary or prolonged, had passed, the blind man would start to his feet, and, recalling himself to himself, would find the vision replaced by some common tangible objects and the usual blank which is ever be- fore him. The seeing one, on the contrary, pulling himself together, would, with his true sight-by the exercise of his optic nerve dlSpSl GQ0 V1SlOu, anu IuO lt ESplacou Dy u1S ordinary surroundings, consciousness of which he would recover instantly; but he would still assert that he had seen ghost. And truly he has but he has been blind
 while he saw it! His physical retina has been
 obscured as thoroughly as his blind broth
 er's; but the mental retina has carried the
 truth home to the mind of each with equal
 force In each case the ghost has existed
 has been created-within themselves; and
 if it be verity to the blind, as I have en-
 deavored to show it is, why should it not be
 to the seeing? It has been built up out of @
 previously acquired knowledge of the reality,
 the impress of which is mysteriously but
 indelibly graven on some of those tablets of
 the sensations called memory, and which we
 carry about with us without thinking of them,
 because, as is said, they take up so little
 room. These deeply imprinted characters
 have leaped suddenly into sort of definite
 shape and meaning, when summoned by cir
 cunStanees accidentally but impereeptibly
 associated with them, and have become the
 ghost of their original form and substance.