Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1900-05-15

tfOn of the Spirit of n Dead Friend
Who Appeared to and Convened
! With Him In His Room.
biologist and member of the Ameri-
| can Academy of Sciences, was long
recognized as the foremost advocate Of
I belief in the existence of ghosts. He
| had promised several of his friends
that, if able to do so. he would appear
10 them after his own demise. and they
are still waiting, with no little inter
est, to see if he can carry out the
agreement.
Il have myself seen the ghosts OF q
good many dead persons" said the
doctor one day. Il remember one oc-
casion when l had just gone TO bed,
the light being turned out. 1 was COM
posing myself to sIumber when 1 sud
denly became aware of a presence in
the room. The impression conveyed
TO my mind was that it was the pres
ence OF a certain person lately deceas-
ed, with whom l had been on very in
innate terms. In fact, l felt an over
towering sense of the nearness OF the
individual in question.
About the same moment there
arose slowly from the floor a nebulous
mass of what looked like shining
white vapOr, which began to take
shape, as did the smoke from the cas-
ket opened by the fisherman in the
Arabian Nights tales. Gradually 1t
assumed n more distinct outline, I'M
til II presented a radiant image of my
friend. The lips appeared TO move.
and from them came an Ineligible ut
terance. a message in short, from the
departed. l do not care TO say what
that message was.
81 can assure you that the vision was
no dream, and the nature of the mes
sage was such as to eliminate, to my
own satisfaction at all events, the the
DRY of hallucination. What. then, was
this shape of shining white vapor?
Was II human soul? 1t is a question
pregnant with intense interest.
Each Of us, l believe, has in him a
ghost, which ordinarily is confined to
the precincts of the body. When l
die. my ghost leaves my body perma-
nently, and, having done so. perhaps 1t
may continue to be the vehicle and
means of expression Of conscious will,
memory and understanding. st. Paul |
says. There is a natural body and n
spiritual body 1t is of the spiritual
body that I am speaking.
Our senses take cogniZance of no |
forms of matter except those which |
are in a certain degree of condensa-
ton. but the spiritual body may be of |
n more rarefied and tenuous substance.
The nOnappearance of ghosts to us |
may be n question not of the existence |
= IL.
perceptive faculties.
My own experience Is that the com |
ing OF an apparition is always proceed |
ed by a curious sensation which l call /
the ghost chill When this symptom /
arrives, the threshold of consciousness
seems 70 be shifted TO the extent of |
possible a perception of /
ordinarily invisible. The /
change is usually very brief. lasting |
only n few seconds, during which the /
occurs.
zone reason that l leave for believing /
the evidence of my own senses in this
matter is that on several occasions the /
apparitiOn Of my own personality has |
presented itself TO other persons in |
places where my body was not at the
time. Some years ago l was in Chica-
go, at an ordinary evening party with L
about 30 friends, when an individual |
In Washington, who did not even know
where l was, was visited by my phan-
tasm and received from IL a brief mes
sage stating where ! was at the time /
and giving the names OF two or three
NJ the guests preSent-persons with |
whom the observer was unacQuainted. |
This was one Of the rare cases where
4 ghost made itself audible.
You ask what would happen If one
should approach ghost such as have
described and try to touch it. My re-
ply is that there would certainly be no /
danger in doing SO, for specters never
10 anybody any harm. the fear Of them
by most people being sim
ply n dread Of that which is unknown
and not understood Whatever is un-
known is always terrible. But the
phantom is composed Of matter too
ienuous to present any obstacle, and
do not doubt that it would dissolve
and disappear il you attempted to
walk through t."-Washington Post