Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1895-07-05
AUGUST.
sardonyx or for thee

AUGUST.
| Wear a sardonyx or for thse
No conJugaI felicity:
The August born without this stone.
Ills said. must live unIoved and alone
SEPTEMBER.
| A maiden born when autumn leaves
| Are r,sting In Septembcrs breeze
| A sapphire on her brow should bind;
Twill cure diseases OF the mind.
OCTOBER.
Octobers child Ia born for woe,
And life's vlcissitudes must Know;
! But lay an opal on her breast,
And hope win lul those woes to rest.
NOVEMBER.
| Who FIRST comes to this world below
1 With dreer Novcmbsr's fog and snow,
should prize the topaz's amber hue,
| Emblem of friends and lovers true.
DECEMBER.
| II cold December gave you birth
| The month OF snow and Ice and mlrth--
Place on your hand turquoise blue;
Success will bless whataer you 90.
We have run away from the subject
with which this letter began-that H.
haunted houses and ghosts. There Is
no doubt still 10 be found among certain
classes OF people belief In the old-fash-
| toned style OF ghosts In white robes and
clanking chains: but the number OF
these devotees at the shrine OF the super
natural Is growing smaller. Another
group has appeared-that Is. the investi-
| gators OF psychologist phenomena, many
| OF whom regard the alleged spiritual
manifestations In a serious aspect. and
seek for natural explanations OF mystic
| rious ASPIRATIONS or this class IL Dr.
| Elliott COues, Of this city. who persist
| emily asserts his belief In ghosts. DR..
! Coues H. scientific man. not spirit
ualist In the ordinary sense OF the word,
but careful investigator Of psychologist
problems. do not know what theory
is held by DR.. Couos. but in an interview
| recently with a newspaper-writer he said:
Il am speaking with not sufficiently
! precise description when / refer TO a
peculiar sensation of chill which is ex-
perienced by person whose conscious
ness passes for brief time beyond the
| threshold Of ordinary physical percep-
! ton. IL Is felt very rarely even by the
few individuals who are go organized
! psychically as to be ghost-seeres. When
such a feeling comes across you YOU
may expect to witness phenomena which
usually are not under human observa-
ton. Respecting the nature and causes
| Of these phenom ana we know little or
It's extremist infancy. Endless ques-
tions at once arise before the explorer
who would pursue this untrOdden path
Of knowledge. Most interesting Of them
all IL that which concerns the relation
Of the phenomena described to the prob
lem OF human Immortality. May II be
| that all around us are unseen multi
tubes os ghosts? The room I'm which we
are alone may be crowded with our dead
a % 10
roughfare may be thronged with invisible
beings. The present population OF the
earth Is bat handful compared with the
billions who have died.
zone very interesting discovery Oh
tanned by research in this line Is that
| there IS such a thing as the ghost OF
| living person. Furthermore. there Is no
essential difference between the spectre
| Of living individual. and the apparition
Of dead one. The latter has abandoned
the body permanently. while the former
has left II only temporarily. An i'm
mense mass Of testimony has been adj
duced to prove that phantasms Of living
human beings-that Is. simulacra repre-
senting them in form and feature-do ac-
tually appear sometimes, and even At
great distances from the persons to whom
the ghosts belong. Usually such phan-
tasms are projected without the
kNDWteOSe OF INtlr oWNrIS.
DR.. C0ues thinks each one Of us carries
his own ghost within him. but it some
times leaves the body, and appears as
phantom TO somebody at a distance. as
In the case OF apparitions OF drowning
men. Then. too. the Doctor holds that
the ghost within uS can exert physical
force at a distance. and thus produce
the singular effects observed IN table
rapping. or the levitation OF material
4. l. IL
caper about his dining-room under the
influence OF this force.
Mr. Thomas Jay Hudson. resident OF
Washington, has gone further than the
doctor. and formulated laws Of psychic
phenomena by which he endeavors to
explain all mysterious manifestations.
The hypothesis by which he accounts
for apparitiOns. phantasms, may be
briefly set forth The power resides in
the subjective mind OF man. he says, to
create phantasm herceptible To- the
| objective senses OF others, and to endow
them witli a certain degree or intelll-
gence and power. This notion he derives
from Eliphas Levi, a famous writer on
magic. who declares that human thought
creates what il imagines: thus. he who
aifirms the devil creates the devil. The
| essential condition OF the projection OF
phantoms is the total or partial suspen-
! the more complete the suspension the
more clearly defined are the apparitions.
| The creative power OF the slbjectiv,
! consciousness becomes greater as tn
| body approaches the condition Of death
and is the greatest at the hour Of death.
Hence ghosts. Mr.. Hudson proposes as
a universal fact that all phantasms of the
| dead are OF those who have died under
| circumstances Of great mental stress or
| emotion. 1t Is the ghosts of persons
who have died violent deaths that most
| frequently revisit the glimpses OF the
moon" 4 murdered man feels an in
tense longing to signify TO the living
! the manner Of his taking off, and returns
/ in ghostiy garb to the scene Of the
| tragedy. Hence. the haunted house.
! 4 ghost is simply the projection OF an
! intense emotion or thought. When its
mission has been accomplished II fades
away. 1t is a shade, not a soul. or sub
/ jective entity. and in time it disinte-
| CRATES. Its capacity for continued exist
ence depends upon the intensity Of the
mental force which created II. Shakes
| peare was a master of psychology. The
/ most powerful illustrations of the theory
/ Of ghosts are to BE- found in Hamlet and
Macbeth.