The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1883-01-04
Blindness and Ghosts.


We hear of marvellous ghost stories,
more or less well 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 a class of these
point to-the commonest class-that is,
where some beloved one, far away, APP
pears, 80 to speak, ias p7oprig persona,
and in more or less substantial form, of
course to the intense 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
popular traditions, novels, and dramas,
that of the "Corsiean Brothers" being
notable example; and, in way, its 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
apppreciably lessened by what we tin-
derstand as physical distance. Given,
then, the existence of this sway in some
particular case of a seeing person, and
where the natural conditions are favora-
BILE to him-fayorable, that is, in that he
is either ordinarily or temporarily,
through low state of health, nervous
sensitive, and is, moreover. normally
what is called a person who lives in the
elouds-and it shall be quite possible for
him, according te NY 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 nevertheless tending toward the
absent one whom he denominates or is
dominated by, or between whom and
himself there exists some sort of
bond-he sits brooding or is living in
bed, when, hey, prestol he suddenly
thinks he sees the absent one standing
before him, palpably, unInistakably, and
precisely as a blind man would do in
similar circumstances.
Of course, the mental condition of
both is not easy to define, but it is, [
fancy, very much akin--much more SO
than we at first might think. To the
blind man the presence would be posi-
tive reality-as real, that is, as anything
he ever sees; and if, in way, the man
not blind is reduced to the same condi-
tion for the time, as 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, would find
the vision replaced by some common
tangible objects and the usual blank
which is ever before him. The seeing
one, would, with his true slightly the
exercise of his optic nerve-dispel the
vision, and find it replaced by his ordi-
nary surroundings, a consciousness Of
which he would recover instantly; but he
would still assert that he had seen a
ghost. And truly he has; but he has
been blind while he saw it! His physi-
cal retina has been obscuredas thoroughly
as his blind brotheEs, 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
a variety to the blind, as / have
endeavored to show it is, why should it
not be to the seeing? 1t has been built
upout of a previously acquired knowl-
edge of the reality, the impress of which
is mysteriously but indelibly craven on
some of those tablets of the sensations
called memory, and which we carry about
with us without thinking of them, be-
cause, as is said, they take up 50 little
room. These deeply imprinted characters
have leaped suddenly into sort of def
mite shape and meaning, when summoned
by circumstances accidentally but imper-
ceptibly associated with them, and have
become the ghost of their original form
and substance. - London S0cietu.